By Femi Anamelechi
Sporadic condemnations continue to trail President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s decision to declare a state of Emergency in Rivers State. Among those who has dared to refer to the declarations as partisan and bad commentary for the country’s democratic development and growth is no less a person than the Turaki of Adamawa State and former Vice president, Alhaji Abubakar Atiku ( CFR) he said “The declaration of a state of emergency in Rivers State reeks of political manipulation and outright bad faith. Atiku further said: “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 lands 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.”
Speaking further the Presidential candidate of PDP in 2023 pointed out that If federal infrastructure in Rivers has been compromised, the President bears full responsibility. Punishing the people of Rivers State just to serves 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.” This is just one out the the millions of Nigerians who have condemned the state if emergency in Rivers State.
