Embracing a mentality for continuous growth and improvement is crucial for development especially in the political arena.
However, after the events that culminated in the declaration of a state of emergency and the affirmation of such by the two chambers of the National Assembly, questions as to the developmental trajectory of Nigeria’s democracy have again come to fore.
When President Olusegun Obasanjo declared emergency rule on the Plateau in 2004, the first time such was done since the First Republic crisis, he suspended the democratic structures in the state.
That move was challenged by some people including the suspended governor who eventually won a relief in the courts, but after the period of the emergency rule.
The same action in suspending the democratic structure was also done in Ekiti State when President Obasanjo similarly declared a state of emergency in that state following the flux that followed the controversial impeachment of Governor Ayodele Fayose.
Whatever, when President Goodluck Jonathan in 2013 responded to the insecurity fuelled by the Boko Haram insurgents in the three Northeast states of Adamawa, Borno and Yobe with a state of emergency, the nation’s democratic ethos had greatly improved. That was about the time Jonathan also appointed somebody he had never met as the country’s chief electoral umpire.
Jonathan did not go the Obasanjo way of suspending the governors in the three states that were at that time regularly under attack of Boko Haram.
While President Jonathan was commended for his espousal of constitutionalism in leaving the democratic structures in place for the period of the state of emergency, there were, however, some who still felt the declaration was unnecessary.
One of those persons was the national leader of the then Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
In a terse response to the 2013 declaration, Tinubu saw the move as essentially political aimed at suppressing the then opposition ahead of 2015.
He said:
“It has become crystal clear, even to the most incurable optimist, that the country is adrift.”
While excusing the three governors from blame, Tinubu said:
“No Governor of a state in Nigeria is indeed the Chief Security Officer. Putting the blame on the Governors, who have been effectively emasculated, for the abysmal performance of the government at the centre which controls all these security agencies, smacks of ignorance and mischief.”
Affirming that the governors and other elected representatives should not be undermined on account of the state of emergency, Tinubu continued:
“The President’s pronouncement, which seeks to abridge or has the potential of totally scuttling the constitutional functions of Governors and other elected representatives of the people, will be counterproductive in the long run.”
But how the president walked back on his own assertions is one that has amazed many. If he as a fighter for democracy upheld the sovereignty of the people’s democratic choices, it is shocking for many that he in his time uprooted elected democratic structures in Rivers State.
Even the argument for the declaration of a state of emergency in Rivers is still vacuous. Is it in the realms of insecurity? Rivers State is much safer for many than many other states terrorised by insurgency in the North.
The fact that there is a political crisis in the state is, however, indisputable. That crisis was essentially fuelled by the fact that the House of Assembly was split with a majority of the lawmakers aligned against the governor. That apparently should not be a problem. But the governor and his traducers turned that into a major crisis.
Whatever problem that flowed from the immobility of the state legislature was corrected by the recent Supreme Court judgment.
For whatever reason the implementation of the pronouncements of the apex court should have been allowed to have free course. But, however, the president, apparently for political exigences did not have the kind of patience with the rebellious political godson of his minister, Nyesom Wike.
The expectation of many that the National Assembly would call the president to order by restoring the governor and the lawmakers was dashed when the leadership of the two houses railroaded the two chambers to approve the proclamation last Thursday.
The action of the two houses inevitably confirmed for all that opposition in the two houses is gone. The progress that the country had seen in the evolvement of its constitutional culture especially in the proclamation of emergency rule has now been reversed.
Its a pity that when history recalls when this occurred that not only will Tinubu be mentioned, but Senator Godswill Akpabio and Speaker Tajudeen Abass will get prominent positions as facilitators in the reversal of our democratic culture.
The post How Akpabio, Abbas failed Rivers State, by Emmanuel Aziken appeared first on Vanguard News.
