Basil Okoh
Bola Tinubu is a president lashing out in panic and deep fear. His broadcast declaring a state of emergency in Rivers State yesterday was a self indicting broadside made by a man in real panic of the possible fallouts from removing a duly elected government. Neither the president nor anybody else has the powers to remove a duly elected person or government.
The Constitution of Nigeria does not give anyone such powers. So in panic, Tinubu has committed the travesty of taking power from an elected governor and handing his office to an unelected citizen of another state, making rubbish of the Nigerian constitution. It is an action by a man acting in real fear of facing the consequences of a previous crime. Governor Fubara is the nemesis that threatens to upend the gains of his 2023 rigging of the Rivers presidential election.
Unable to be assured of Fubara’s loyalty for the 2027 project, Tinubu remains in fear of Governor Fubara, apprehensive of a possible refusal to be used in the rigging of the 2027 election in the same degenerate way Wike did in 2023. So having lost the rump of the North, Tinubu is in dread of being unable to re-enact the heist committed by his accomplice Nyesom Wike in the fearsome election theft in Rivers state in 2023. Bola Tinubu, president of Nigeria is the principal beneficiary of that election crime and is removing the governor of Rivers in travesty of the constitution and in dread of his incapacity to redo 2023.
As retribution by the gods, this is payback time for both Wike and Tinubu. The massive infractions of the 2023 election never really faded from the public mind nor forgotten by the gods of the blessed state. Since that election, there has not been peace in Rivers State. So to solve a problem that refuses to go away, Wike and Tinubu have to create a bigger problem of trampling on the very democratic order that put them in power.
Bola Tinubu made a giant false step with the declaration of a state of emergency in Rivers state, removing the elected governor without the consent of the electors and taking on a people who are trenchantly patriotic to their ethnicity and tenacious in their chosen cause. Their man Fubara exhibits a peaceful mien, does not carry a public moral deficit and so will find it easy to win the support of his people.
Bola Tinubu’s ploy in this matter has been understood from the beginning. He truly lost the 2023 presidential election in Rivers state but the vile and brazen roguery of Wike in the election worked to overturn the true results and then the announcement of an outcome that offended the senses of the voters in its sheer degeneracy and falsity. The irreverence shown to the people of Rivers State expressed in that false result has led to a loss of faith and trust in both Bola Tinubu and Nyesom Wike, leading also to the loss of relevance of Wike in the politics of the state. It is this loss of relevance that Wike has been forcefully trying to get back even as Governor Fubara continues to resist.
Bola Tinubu, being a highly dependent client of Wike in his nuisance has been working to break down the resistance of Fubara to accept Wike’s proxy rule of Rivers state. So the vicious president, seeing defeat in Fubara’s strong resistance and refusal to be railroaded, had to instigate Wike to cause enough disruptions to justify the declaration of a state of emergency in Rivers State. Now, Tinubu consolidated his excuse for the declaration of a state of emergency with the blown up pipeline and without the evidence, blaming Fubara for it. But then after removing the governor and government of Rivers State, what’s next?
A declaration of state of emergency can never be enough to win Rivers state over. The people of the state hold the three aces in the card play. The three export terminals for Nigerian crude are located in Ijaw land. Those are the jugular of the Nigerian economy. Will Tinubu now send the army to guard these export terminals and the pipelines? Will he now order soldiers to shoot at every Ijaw person who go near the pipelines that run through their communities? It’s obvious Bola Tinubu does not know what problems he impulsively let himself into. The Ijaw and Rivers state problem is beyond bravado. It needs sense and knowledge which are deficit in this government.
Tinubu has bitten far more than he can possibly chew as he lacks the sagacity to manage the dangerous situation he has willfully created. His actions are uninformed by thought, wisdom or information. Unable to determine the possible fallouts from his precipitate actions, he stands to condemn himself and his government to emotional reactions to what obviously should have been avoided if he made the sensible choices from the beginning.
The situation demanded the benefits of thought and knowledge, but Like the non educated politician that Tinubu is, he is feeling his way through real trouble by not being able to predict and project the possible consequences of his actions. By choosing to be on the side of one man Nyesom Wike against a state of six million people shows such a weakness in judgement and a debilitating absence of enlightened thought.
A president imbued with statecraft will take the side of the people against one man who is just self serving. By allowing Wike to remain in his cabinet while shutting out an elected governor, speaks to his lack of understanding of statecraft and his small mindedness, to the point that he cannot determine his own self interest.
Wike is no longer a political asset to Tinubu or the nation. He has acquired a certain notoriety and is now a nuisance to his state and nation. He can only bring pain to any political sponsor henceforward. Tinubu aught to ditch him to save his government and be on the side of peace and stability. The people can no longer stand for the electoral heist he performed in the last election.
Tinubu has appointed an Administrator for Rivers state who will be required to take the fall for whatever political and economic infractions Tinubu and Wike will commit in the coming months. By doing that, Tinubu has shown his infantile lack of understanding of the basic tenets of democratic rule. An elected person is forever more valuable to the institution of democracy than an appointee. Except that Tinubu is acting in what he thinks is his own self interest.
He has left Nyesom Wike as Minister of the FCT to continue his interference in the affairs of Rivers state and the self entitled grab of the Rivers State treasury. But as Asari Dokubo warned, Rivers State and Nigeria will continue to unravel drip by drip in the following months, leading to a state of anomie that neither Tinubu nor his political friends and advisers can contain. This is going to be a long drawn conflict that will lead to dire consequences, this will be “operation wetie 2.0” and it will be truly reminiscent of 1966, this time, starting from the deep South.
@basilokoh.
