Rivers Emergency: Between acting and fiddling

IN times of harsh circumstance and imminent danger, a responsible and dedicated leader is forced into action to avert needless harm and destruction. This is true of the President of a nation or a General in the midst of battle.

We all know this as the true law of our political existence. Anyone who feigns ignorance of this fact does so not out of truth but in an attempt to foment further crisis. In times of urgent emergency, extraordinary measures can and must be taken. If not, trouble turns into calamity. Normal becomes abnormality. That which is bad becomes even worse and less amenable to solution.

In the case of Rivers State, turmoil and crisis had taken over. The rival stakeholders could not see their way toward resolution. Something had to be done before all became undone.

In this case, President Tinubu stepped up as was his moral and legal obligation to do. In this case, the Constitution, the blueprint of our democracy spells out the options before the President in dire and emergency circumstances. 

The declaration of a state of emergency on Rivers state for six months is well within the stated powers of the President. This is settled by the very wording of the constitution itself and backed by judicial precedents.

Since the declaration was made Nigerians have heard legal and political opinions and analyses of different shades. This discourse is healthy for our democracy but cannot substitute for the rule of law and the proper interpretation of our constitution. The frenzy by opponents of the President has hit a high pitch.  They have placed themselves in opposition to what the law says about the powers and authority of the President because they have previously placed themselves in political opposition to the President.

The powers conferred on the President in this instance and the will to use it when the situation warrants are the difference between an indecisive leader and a courageous, committed one.

The Supreme Court understands this and is very careful in instances such as this. According to Prof. Kanyinsola Ajayi , we must recall what happened in 1962 in the case of FRA Williams and Majekodunmi on the removal of the Premier of the Western Region.

Instructively, the Supreme Court said when it comes to matters of emergency the Courts are very cautious and reluctant to query what the President has done. They observed these are matters that are within the exclusive preserve of the President. This is because issues of public safely, pubic order, national security and the aversion of calamity are not necessarily objective questions that the court can determine.

The Securitization theory posits that leaders must act when they perceive, recognize any existential threat and during severe threat.

Securitisation theory, developed by the Copenhagen School, posits that security is a social construct, not an objective reality. 

The securitisation theory further posits that political issues are constituted as extreme security issues to be dealt with urgently when they have been labelled as ‘dangerous’, ‘menacing’, ‘threatening’, ‘alarming’ and so on by a ‘securitising actor’ who has the social and institutional power to move the issue ‘beyond politics’.

 The deteriorating situation in Rivers a state had become an existential threat to both democracy and national interest. Simplicita. The operative word here is suspension, not removal. There is a six-month window for the return to normalcy. It is in the  light below that we must understand that the most appropriate, timely and constitutional option available to Mr. President was the declaration of a state of emergency. Tanimu Y. et al. capture it perfectly and I concur:

“President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s intervention in Rivers State must be understood—not as a political maneuver, but as a constitutional necessity to prevent the descent into anarchy. His actions, in invoking Section 305 of the Nigerian Constitution, affirm the fundamental role of the presidency: not as a bystander to disorder but as the ultimate custodian of constitutional integrity and national safety.

Unless the public hysteria is all about allowing Rome to burn while Nero fiddles in confusion, it is apt to conclude that President Tinubu wore the toga of a statesman by taking urgent and immediate action to douse the escalating tension in Rivers State because it becomes too late. That is what is called a stitch in time!

—Sunday Dare is the Special Adviser to Mr. President on Media and Public Communications.

READ ALSO: Rivers crisis: PDP govs challenge Tinubu’s emergency rule at Supreme Court