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How To Know In 5 Minutes That The Ongoing State Of Emergency In Rivers State Is Thoroughly Illegal - Plus What To Do About It

Nigeria's democracy is close to getting drowned. Image credit: Google Discovery


The only legal source that President Tinubu cited while declaring a state of emergency in Rivers State recently is Section 305 of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria as amended. According to this section, the President can issue a proclamation of a state of emergency in the Federation or any part thereof by publishing it in the official Gazette of the Government of the Federation.

What Does Section 305 Say?


Here are the key points outlined in Section 305:

  • Grounds for proclamation: The President can proclaim a state of emergency in situations such as war, imminent danger of invasion, actual breakdown of public order and public safety, or natural disasters. None of these happened in Rivers State.

  • Notification: The President must immediately transmit copies of the proclamation to the President of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives. I don't know if he did this. But if he did and the legislature approved of the illegality, then, no one should be surprised at why these legislative houses are often described as “rubber stamp”.

  • Approval: The proclamation must be approved by a resolution passed by a two-thirds majority of both the Senate and the House of Representatives. We didn't see this put to vote in the National Assembly before the proclamation of the state of emergency. Or, did we?

  • The President can also declare a state of emergency in a state if the Governor requests for it with the approval of two-third majority of the state house of assembly. Of course, this never happened in Rivers State.

According to Section 1 focusing on the supremacy of the constitution, "the Federal Republic of Nigeria shall not be governed, nor shall any persons or group of persons take control of the Government of Nigeria or any part thereof, except in accordance with the provisions of this Constitution".

Then, according to section 188 of the Constitution, only through the due processes of a state house of assembly can a state governor or his/her deputy be removed from office - and suspension is removal from office for at least some time.

Therefore, the state of emergency recently declared in Rivers State by President Tinubu is thoroughly illegal even when judged directly using the section of the Constitution quoted by the President.

What About The Moral Ground?

The President's moralistic ground for the action is also thoroughly flawed. As he stated in his speech, he decided to pull the strings because “the House and the Governor have not been able to work together. Both of them do not realize that they are in office to work together for the peace and good governance of the State”.

But, in a situation of genuine separation of powers, are the executive and legislative arms of a government always expected to be in perfect agreement as insinuated by President Tinubu here? While we all want Rivers State to be more peaceful, why should a mere disagreement between the arms of a state government warrant such an extreme measure as overthrowing the government entirely? This is like killing your children for fighting in your house.

See The Danger In Allowing This Illegal State Of Emergency To Go On

What is happening in Rivers State is tantamount to a coup d’etat obviously plotted and executed by Nyesom Wike with the support of President Bola Tinubu. This is apparently why the President has never condemned Wike’s excesses constituting cogs in the wheels of governance in the state even when Wike publicly threatened the governor that he was going to have problems.

Now, we can all see what Wike meant by that. Thus, if we let this state of emergency go on, we are allowing a supposedly elected government to overthrow the system that elected it. It is like breaking the bridge through which it got its power.

Going by the 1999 Constitution, each state government enjoys substantial autonomy from the Federal Government. The reason is that both tiers of government were elected by the people and only the people should be able to undo them through their representatives.

Therefore, if we let this illegality in Rivers go on, we should expect more of this to happen. You can see that some people in the APC are already calling for a similar illegal action in another PDP state (Osun). And some moves are also going on in Bauchi State.

If this trend is allowed to continue, we will get to a point where every opposition would be totally swallowed and Tinubu will be a despot while we all deceive ourselves with only a semblance of democracy.


Lastly, How Can The State Of Emergency In Rivers Be Undone?

Anyone going to court to undo the state of emergency is wasting his or her time, money, and energy. Instead, with the will of the people having been illegally overthrown in Rivers State, the only way the people can get back their mandate is through raw people power.

Therefore, the people of Rivers State should get up and cripple the illegal government foisted on them. They should block the highways and the streets. The militants should blow up more pipelines. They should brutalize any Federal Government personnel seen in State Government offices.

As they do that, the rest of us who value freedom across the country should arise in solidarity with them. Workers should go on strike nationwide. We should not only ask the National Assembly to #restoredemocracyinRivers, we also ask the lawmakers to #impeachTinubu for attacking the constitution he swore an oath to protect, or we recall them. Youths in each constituent should write to their representatives in the National Assembly to either comply with this call or we start the process of recalling them.

Let's stop being cowards, allowing ourselves to be abused again and again just because we are afraid. If we do, we’ll only get more and more abused. You can all see us already sticking out our neck. And, if you support us, register your support here and let's take it beyond digital. Thank you.



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