{"id":2822,"date":"2025-03-18T23:06:16","date_gmt":"2025-03-18T23:06:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/?p=2822"},"modified":"2025-03-18T23:06:16","modified_gmt":"2025-03-18T23:06:16","slug":"tinubus-authoritarian-attack-on-democracy-in-rivers-state","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/2025\/03\/18\/tinubus-authoritarian-attack-on-democracy-in-rivers-state\/","title":{"rendered":"Tinubu\u2019s Authoritarian Attack on Democracy in Rivers State"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>By Farooq Kperogi<\/p>\n<p>In the wake of a Supreme Court-triggered crisis in Rivers State \u2014masterminded by Nyesom Wike, whose outsize influence over the judiciary has earned him the fittingly dubious distinction of being the de facto head of Nigeria\u2019s \u201cjudiciary\u201d \u2014 President Bola Tinubu has, with a stroke of imperial presidential pronouncement, declared a state of emergency and suspended democracy.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_906\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-906\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-906\" src=\"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/Screenshot_20241111-150939_1-300x259.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"259\" srcset=\"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/Screenshot_20241111-150939_1-300x259.jpg 300w, https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/Screenshot_20241111-150939_1.jpg 600w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-906\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Barr.Yesome Wike<\/p><\/div>\n<p>In a twist as darkly ironic as it is emblematic, he has chosen to replace elected officials with a retired military officer by the name of Vice Admiral Ibok-Ete Ekwe Ibas, effectively reviving the tired and dangerous fallacy (actively nurtured and propagated by Nigeria\u2019s past military dictators) that when civilians falter, only soldiers can &#8220;restore order.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>This move reinforces the infantilization of civilian governance and reduces democracy to something that must be periodically &#8220;rescued&#8221; by the men in fatigues.<\/p>\n<p>Interestingly, in May 2013, Tinubu himself condemned the declaration of a state of emergency in Borno, Yobe, and Adamawa as a dangerous assault on democracy and a ploy to rig the 2015 election.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe body language of the Jonathan administration leads any keen watcher of events to the unmistakable conclusion of the existence of a surreptitious but barely disguised intention to muzzle the elected governments of these states for what is clearly a display of unpardonable mediocrity and diabolic partisanship geared towards 2015,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Now, with his own state of emergency in Rivers, two years before the 2027 election in which he will seek a second term, the question writes itself: Is this, too, a \u201cdisplay of unpardonable mediocrity and diabolic partisanship geared towards 2027\u201d?<\/p>\n<p>Or do the rules of democracy shift when the emperor changes robes?<\/p>\n<p>One hopes Tinubu has fully considered the ramifications of his decision. He based his suspension of democracy in Rivers on the Supreme Court\u2019s tendentious declaration that \u201cthere is no government in Rivers State.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Well, for the millions of Nigerians already struggling under the weight of his government\u2019s reckless economic policies, \u201cthere is no government in Nigeria\u201d right now. Governance, for most, is an abstraction at best and an illusion long shattered at worst.<\/p>\n<p>Should the military intervene to restore governance?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; By Farooq Kperogi In the wake of a Supreme Court-triggered crisis in Rivers State \u2014masterminded by Nyesom Wike, whose outsize influence over the judiciary has earned him the fittingly dubious distinction of being the de facto head of Nigeria\u2019s \u201cjudiciary\u201d \u2014 President Bola Tinubu has, with a stroke of imperial presidential pronouncement, declared a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":911,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1516,1774,1771,1770,1775,1773,1772],"class_list":["post-2822","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-diabolic","tag-distinction","tag-dubious","tag-fittingly","tag-masterminded","tag-partisanship","tag-unpardonable-mediocrity"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2822","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2822"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2822\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2823,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2822\/revisions\/2823"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/911"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2822"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2822"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2822"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}