9 Things That Forced Tinubu’s Hand in Rivers State

President Bola Tinubu yesterday lifted the state of emergency in Rivers State, restoring full powers to Governor Siminalayi Fubara and the State House of Assembly.

The decision, effective from midnight September 17, 2025, follows a six-month intervention that the President described as “painfully inevitable.”

In a national address on Wednesday, the President detailed the extreme circumstances that compelled his unprecedented invocation of Section 305 of the 1999 Constitution. Here are the nine critical factors that forced the President’s hand:

1. Total Paralysis of Governance: The state government reached a complete standstill, with the executive and legislative arms locked in a bitter power struggle that made governance impossible.
2. Constitutional Impasse: The Governor could not present any Appropriation Bill to the House of Assembly, severing access to funds needed to run the state’s affairs and provide basic services.
3. A House Divided: The State House of Assembly was crippled by internal crisis, fracturing into two factions: four members aligned with the Governor and 27 members opposing him and supporting the Speaker.
4. Economic Sabotage: Critical economic assets, including vital oil pipelines, were being vandalised, threatening national economic security and energy production.
5. Judicial Confirmation of a Vacuum: The Supreme Court, in a ruling on one of the many cases between the warring arms of government, held that there was effectively “no government in Rivers State,” lending judicial weight to the crisis.
6. Failed Interventions: Attempts by the President and other well-meaning Nigerians to mediate a peaceful resolution between the parties proved “abortive,” as both sides “stuck rigidly to their positions.”
7. Threat of Anarchy: The political deadlock was fuelling a drift towards a complete “breakdown of public order and public safety,” creating an environment of instability and insecurity.
8. Constitutional Duty: Faced with the above, the President stated he was “obligated” to act, invoking his constitutional powers to arrest the drift into chaos, calling it a “colossal failure” not to have done so.
9. National Assembly Backing: The National Assembly, after its own evaluation, approved the emergency declaration, providing the necessary legislative consensus for the extraordinary measure.

President Tinubu stated that the six-month period had allowed for a cooling of tensions, noting a “groundswell of a new spirit of understanding” among stakeholders. He has now ordered that Governor Fubara, Deputy Governor Ngozi Nma Odu, and the lawmakers led by Speaker Martins Amaewhule resume their offices immediately.

The President concluded with a warning to all states, imploring governors and assemblies to appreciate that “it is only in an atmosphere of peace, order, and good government that we can deliver the dividends of democracy to our people.”