Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has strongly condemned President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s declaration of a State of Emergency in Rivers State.
In a nationwide broadcast on Tuesday night, President Tinubu announced the emergency rule, citing unrest in the state and the destruction of several oil pipelines by militants as justifications for his decision.
He also suspended Governor Siminalayi Fubara and his deputy, Ngozi Odu, for a period of six months. Additionally, Tinubu dismissed all elected members of the Rivers State House of Assembly and appointed Vice Admiral Ibokette Ibas (Rtd.) as administrator to oversee the state’s affairs.
Responding to the situation, Atiku issued a statement personally signed by him, asserting that the declaration of a state of emergency in Rivers “reeks of political manipulation and outright bad faith.”
The statement reads: “Anyone paying attention to the unfolding crisis knows that Bola Tinubu has been a vested partisan actor in the political turmoil engulfing Rivers. His blatant refusal — or calculated negligence — in preventing this escalation is nothing short of disgraceful.
“Beyond the political scheming in Rivers, the brazen security breaches that led to the condemnable destruction of national infrastructure in the state land squarely on the President’s desk.
“Tinubu cannot evade responsibility for the chaos his administration has either enabled or failed to prevent.
“It is an unforgivable failure that under Tinubu’s watch, the Niger Delta has been thrown back into an era of violent unrest and instability — undoing the hard-won peace secured by the late President Umaru Yar’Adua. Years of progress have been recklessly erased in pursuit of selfish political calculations.
“If federal infrastructure in Rivers has been compromised, the President bears full responsibility. Punishing the people of Rivers State just to serve the political gamesmanship between the governor and Tinubu’s enablers in the federal government is nothing less than an assault on democracy and must be condemned in the strongest terms.”
