WEDNESDAY March 19, 2025 |
By thenewsdesk.ng
The Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, has condemned President Bola Tinubu’s declaration of a state of emergency in Rivers State.
PDP says it is an “unconstitutional power grab” aimed at dismantling democracy in the region.
The opposition party, in a Tuesday press statement signed by its National Publicity Secretary, Debo Ologunagba, rejected what it described as an “outright violation” of the 1999 Constitution and an attempt to impose an unelected government on the people of Rivers State.
“The Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, and indeed, Nigerians listened with dismay to the national broadcast by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu in which the President, in utter violation of the 1999 Constitution, pronounced an imposition of a state of emergency in Rivers State.”
The PDP decried Tinubu’s decision to suspend the elected Governor of Rivers State, Siminalayi Fubara, and replace him with retired Vice Admiral Ibokette Ibas, arguing that such an action “borders on an attempt at state capture.”
“The unconstitutional declaration by President Tinubu of the suspension of the democratically elected Governor of Rivers State, Governor Siminalayi Fubara, and appointment of an unelected individual, Vice Admiral Ibokette Ibas (rtd), to govern the State is a clear attack on our nation’s democracy, an abrogation of the votes and democratic right of the people of Rivers State to choose their leader under the Constitution.”
The statement further accused the All Progressives Congress, APC, of deliberately fueling the crisis in Rivers State as part of a broader strategy to “forcefully take over Rivers State” and neutralize political opposition across the country.
The statement further read, “It is the climax of a well-oiled plot to forcefully take over Rivers State, for which the APC has been bent on stoking crisis to ensure that democracy is ultimately truncated in the State.”
