1 week Ago By Tokunbo2
By Juliana Taiwo-Obalonye, AbujaPan Niger Delta Forum (PANDEF) Chairman Godknows Igali has voiced deep concerns over Rivers State’s democracy following President Bola Tinubu’s emergency rule declaration on March 18, 2025.In an open letter to Sole Administrator Vice Admiral Ibok-Ete Ibas (retd), Igali condemned the “systematic tearing down” of democratic institutions under Ibas’s watch. googletag.
cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-1718806029429-0'); }); He pointed to actions like removing Governor Siminalayi Fubara’s photographs from government offices and suspending bodies such as the State Independent Electoral Commission and Traditional Rulers Council.
“Your presence in Rivers State is an embarrassing aberration to all men of goodwill and good conscience,” Igali wrote in his letter dated 3 April 2025.Igali questioned the timing of the emergency rule, coming just a week after South-South leaders met Tinubu to discuss peace efforts. “I still cannot come to terms that a state of emergency was declared in Rivers State just one week after our most revered leaders had audience with Mr President,” he said.
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push({})}); He also criticised Fubara’s earlier demolition of the Rivers State House of Assembly in December 2023, which the Supreme Court on 28 February 2025 ruled unconstitutional, stating, “A government cannot be said to exist without one of the three arms that make up the government.”Tinubu defended the emergency rule as essential for restoring order, saying, “There is no way democratic governance can thrive in a way that will redound to the benefit of the good people of the state.” Igali, while acknowledging Ibas’s service, urged him to respect constitutional limits and work with Fubara’s appointees for peace.
“I have thought it important and quite pertinent to write to you to raise a matter of serious concern to all watchers of the event in Rivers State and particularly leaders of various groups in the south-south of the country,” Igali stated.He warned, “The more troubling scenario that has emerged from your assumption of office is the unbelievable level of dismantling, disassembling, and raising down all the institutions of democracy that have been in existence in the state.”He concluded, “It is against this backdrop that I have been in great pain to write this letter to you and take the liberty to caution that in this complex national assignments which you find yourself enlisted to carry out, you must be timorous enough to not find yourself taking decisions that pale in the sight of best and acceptable standards of decency.
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