Rivers State residents and political activists are disappointed that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has not seized the chance to bring back democratic rule in Rivers State on June 12, 2025, the day Nigeria celebrated 26 years of unbroken democracy.
Speculations heightened hopes that the president will recall Governor Siminalayi Fubara to commemorate his actions on Democracy Day and remove the undemocratic government in Rivers State.
Nevertheless, when the President spoke to a joint session of the National Assembly, he made no mention of the state, which disappointed those expectations.
In an attempt to bring peace to the state, which he said was spiraling out of hand under Fubara’s leadership, Tinubu suspended democratic government in Rivers for six months.
under his remarks, Tinubu bemoaned the ongoing crisis and insisted that democratic governance—for which Nigerians, he said, have battled and worked for years—could not flourish under such conditions in a way that would benefit the state’s citizens.
Tinubu claimed that certain militants had threatened to use fire and brimstone against the governor, who they believed to be their enemy and who had not yet repudiated them.
According to the President, on March 18, 2025, it became inevitably compelling for him to invoke the provision of Section 305 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 as amended, which he said had empowered him to declare a state of emergency in the state.
The President complained that prior to the suspension, the state had been at a standstill since the crisis started. However, some people from the state who spoke to DAILY POST said that things are worse now, despite monthly allocations being released to the Sole Administrator.
Meanwhile, DAILY POST can report that the Governor had made some moves to represent the 2025 state appropriation bill to the State Assembly, but the House was said to have turned him back.
As directed by the court, Fubara arrived to deliver the state’s 2025 budget on Wednesday, March 12, 2025, but was refused entry to the Rivers State House of Assembly quarters, where members currently convene in plenary sessions.
According to DAILY POST, Fubara has made at least two trips to see his benefactor and Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Minister Nyesom Wike in an attempt to mend fences since the declaration of emergency.
According to reliable information obtained by DAILY POST, on Monday, June 13, 2025, Fubara met with Wike at his home in Abuja.
Prior to Democracy Day, he also had a meeting with President Tinubu at his Lagos home.
All this put together, some Nigerians were expecting the President to cut short the six-month suspension and return democratic rule to Rivers State on June 12.
Speaking on the matter, the senator representing Bayelsa West district and former Governor of Bayelsa State, Henry Seriake Dickson, had faulted Tinubu’s silence on the emergency rule in Rivers State in his address to a joint session of the National Assembly.
Reflecting on the symbolic importance of the June 12 Democracy Day, Dickson said he expected Tinubu to use the occasion to restore democratic rule in Rivers State.
The senator regretted that the President missed a golden opportunity to strengthen democracy by skipping Rivers State in his address.
“On the one hand, you cannot claim to be a democrat while simultaneously stifling democracy.” Today, the president lost a great chance to restore constitutional government in Rivers State and bolster democracy.
“The President’s speech was eerily silent on Rivers State. Repression is not the topic of today. It has nothing to do with silence. It’s about protecting and honoring Nigerians’ democratic rights, particularly those of the people of Rivers State.
“This has nothing to do with Governor Fubara’s background or political affiliation, if any. People change parties so often these days that it’s impossible to keep up. The people of Rivers State, their democratic rights, and the integrity of our Constitution are at the center of this,” he stated.
Speaking to DAILY POST, Port Harcourt-based political activist, legal practitioner, and chieftain of the All Progressives Congress, Chizy Enyi, Esq., said all that matters to the President now is his re-election in 2027.
“It is now obvious and in the public domain that the reason behind Tinubu’s suspending the executive governor of Rivers State is to take control of the state and to win the election in Rivers State by 2027.
Though this is against the Constitution, Rivers State, or Rivers people, cannot resort to self-help by disrespecting the President to take charge of the state based on the fact that they elected or voted for Fubara, who Tinubu does not have the right to suspend.
“However, having suspended Governor Fubara, we’re all aware that Tinubu said he is saving Rivers State from an impending crisis. Now, the problem between Governor Fubara and Wike has always been his political structure, ‘my structure, my structure.’ He always said the Governor should not tamper with his structure.
Now, Tinubu has appointed a Sole Administrator who has resorted to appointing other board members and conducting local government elections in a place where we have military rule.
“Now that we are under military rule, how can we also conduct elections under military rule? Now, conducting elections and giving appointments to all Wike’s supporters, having appointed the Sole Administrators of the various local governments, all as Wike’s supporters, is the evidence of the fact that truly Tinubu has resorted to giving Wike the structure he meant.
“Else, how will Tinubu suspend the sitting governor and then allow the election of local government chairmen to be conducted? Now the Supreme Court said that the Sole Administrators, or any appointee, as a local government chairman, whether caretaker or underany nomenclature, should not head local government. But since the appointment of the Sole Administrator, he has also appointed the Sole Administrators of the various local governments. Tinubu has refused to acknowledge that this is against the provisions of the Constitution and also the judgment of the Supreme Court.
Wike’s supporters have always been involved in all aspects of the violence occurring in Rivers State. As everyone is aware, the issue in Rivers State is not with the governor or anything else; rather, it is with President Tinubu returning the infrastructure to Wike so that he may be delivered by 2027.
We simply need to follow the law, but in 2027—which is still a long way off—they chose to go against the will of the people. Rivers State will be undermined by the president’s decision. He hasn’t come to the state in the two years since he was elected, yet he still wants our votes.
“The success of President Tinubu will be assessed in 2027. Many people also anticipated that Fubara would have been reinstated by June 12. Rivers’ people had hopes, ambitions, and aspirations, but he [Tinubu] purposefully rejected them. History will always repeat itself, and time will tell.
“It will be terrible that Rivers will always remember President Tinubu negatively rather than positively.”
Chief Eze Chukwuemeka Eze, a former national publicity secretary for the New Peoples Democratic Party (nPDP) and a leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC), also told the Daily Post that the president’s goal is to underdevelop Rivers State by suspending democracy.
Eze said that ahead of the 2027 general elections, Tinubu is strategising to ensure that a former Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, does not have a solid base politically.
“He is after Amaechi and not Rivers State per se,” he said, adding that Tinubu has captured the state for his 2027 agenda.
“President Tinubu is not being influenced by any external force, but this is his agenda, to underdevelop Rivers State to avoid the state from being developed like Lagos and Akwa Ibom States,” he said.
“It is a calculated strategy to ensure that Amaechi does not have a solid base politically. He is after Amaechi and not Rivers State per se.
“He has captured the resources of Rivers State for his 2027 agenda, but it is left to the people of Rivers State to continue to tolerate his evil agenda.
“The emergency rule will only end when he is sure that Sim Fubara is so incapacitated and ready to carry out their evil agenda against Rivers State and her people.
“From the security challenges facing many states where hundreds are being killed, we can now deduce accurately that it wasn’t any security challenge pertaining to Rivers State that brought about the state of emergency, but a selfish drive to destroy Rivers State.
“I am sad because some of the misguided fellows that call themselves leaders from the state are rejoicing and celebrating while Tinubu is destroying their state. May God have mercy upon them all.”
According to Dike Emmanuel, a resident of Port Harcourt who spoke to DAILY POST on phone, “All the road projects that were started by Governor Fubara have been abandoned. There are no new ones. I wonder what the money from the Federation Account is being channeled to.”
When asked if the state is now at peace, Finipri Obomanu said, “Yes.” Even before the president suspended the governor, Rivers State was at peace. You may travel to Benue, Zamfara, Plateau, and all of those locations if you’re seeking for areas where murders occur on a daily basis. Not Rivers. Here, a state of emergency didn’t need to be declared.
According to the state’s citizens, the emergency rule prevents them from enjoying the benefits of democracy.
President Tinubu was also urged by the Ijaw Youth Council, IYC, Worldwide, to show his dedication to democratic principles by reestablishing constitutional democracy and abolishing the state of emergency that had been placed on Rivers State.
Prior to the June 12 celebration of this year’s Democracy Day, the Council issued this appeal.
It stated that Tinubu, who has benefited greatly from the nation’s democratic development, ought to take advantage of June 12 to reinstate Governor Siminalayi Fubara and all of the state’s elected officials.
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