Banner Online News

By Etim Etim

Suddenly, the crisis in the Nigerian Senate has been replaced in the headlines by the state of emergency declared in Rivers State by President Tinubu and the resurgence of bombings in the creeks. Senator Godswill Akpabio is perhaps the happiest politician in the country today because of the respite he has just received. I understand that the ‘’Queen of the Senate’’ was already planning to give interviews to CNN; Al Jazeera and other cable networks to further ridicule the Senate President. She’s also been invited to make presentations at a few women events in Lagos and Abuja in the months ahead. But she’s had to shelve her media plans in view of the national mood and the shift in attention to Rivers; but is going ahead with her intentions to write to Western embassies in Abuja to report Senator Akpabio and advise them to register the Senate President as ‘’a serial sex offender’’. She’s a relentless fighter and she knows what she wants, one of her advisers told me.

Meantime, continued explosions in the creeks of the Niger Delta will disrupt crude oil production and exports, and this would set the economy tailspinning into a chaos. The Nigerian economy has been experiencing its severest fiscal crisis in a generation and further commotions could trigger a recession – a nightmare scenario that is better imagined than experienced.

The country has been struggling to go beyond a production volume of 1.5 million barrels per day, and with oil prices hovering between $70 and $77, a deficit of N13. 39 trillion in the 2025 budget, a recession will lead to hyper inflation; job losses; insecurity and political violence.

Tinubu’s plan to achieve a $1 trillion economy by 2031 is increasingly becoming a mirage. Whosoever pushed Tinubu on this political path is putting him on the path to self-destruct. Did he see this coming or is he sleep-walking into it? Can Nigeria handle full scale uprising in the Niger Delta?

Although his backers are quick to ascribe supernatural political powers to the President, he is clearly out of depth in his handling of the Rivers crisis. He has allowed a combination of bad politics, greed and the politics of 2027 to becloud his sense of judgment. Nyesom Wike was able to procure a bogus election result in favour of APC in the 2023 presidential election and that helped propel Tinubu into office, while Wike became his premier political ally. With another election coming in two years, there has been mounting revolts against the President from important political blocs in the North – a region that gave him an invaluable support he badly needed. The North claims that his draconian economic policies have worsened poverty in the region and his nepotism has denied the region of the patronage it’s used to. Desperate for a second term, the President has turned to the eight Southern States where his party is not in power for succour – four in South-South; three in South East and one in South West. He wants to railroad them into supporting him. Akwa Ibom Governor, Umo Eno is under severe pressure to decamp to APC, while the governors of Bayelsa and Delta have been told to pledge their unalloyed support for Tinubu.

The sacking of Gov. Fubara and the House of Assembly through the emergency rule last night is deemed illegal by various constitutional lawyers, scholars and commentators, but it is an option preferred by the president’s strategists as the easiest way to capture the state.

Dismantling the political structures in a state and imposing a military officer on the people is tantamount to a coup and Nigerians are expectedly aghast. Tinubu has imperiled this democracy and we have to stand up to him and resist this dictatorship. Says David Augustine, a Nigerian journalist who is studying for Ph.D in UK: ‘’Tinubu has been pretending to be a progressive politician; a patriot and fighter for the causes of democracy. He has been pretending to be intelligent and pragmatic. But the veil has been lifted. He has unravels as a scheming, slimy dictator; an economic nitwit and a colossal, corrupt and nepotistic politician entirely fixated on feathering his political and economic nests at the expense of the people and the nation’s wellbeing. He is unwittingly throwing the country to the pre-Yar’adua era of pipeline sabotage and the attendant near crippling economic stagnation – a situation deftly managed with diplomacy, responsibility, and clear-eyed sensitivity. It took the humility of President Yar’adua and his enormous personal integrity and trust capital to navigate the country through that era. Tinubu does not have the humility, the tact, the integrity, and the character to get the country out of a similar bind. Every step he takes now would be seen as the politics of 2027. Thus, the national consensus that helped to douse the tension just before the amnesty programme would be lacking. The president lacks the sensitivity to act with time. He is too steeped in politics to transform into a national leader and statesman. If care is not taken, his end would be catastrophic for the entire country. We pray we don’t get to that point. His misadventure in Rivers State must be keenly watched for its likely effect on the nation’’.

When this crisis is finally over and the dust is settled (hopefully the roof won’t collapse on all of us), there would be enough admonitions for the key actors.

For Nyesom Wike, your greed is your major undoing; for Tinubu, you cannot pretend for too long because you are neither Awolowo nor Ghandi and for Akpabio, ‘’the Queen’’ is not yet done; choose your friends more carefully; set and respect boundaries for your enemies are closer than you think.