•Tinubu and National Assembly complex, Abuja
The National Consultative Front, NCFront, also known as the 3rd Force, has condemned in its entirety, the emergency rule declared by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu on Rivers State last night.
The Professor Pat Utomi-led mass mobilisation political group made this known today in a statement made available to The Frontier.
NCFront in the statement signed by its Director General, Olawale Okunniyi (Veteran Che), also demanded the immediate suspension of a former governor of Rivers State, Nyesom Wike, who is the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), “for fairness, when Wike has been the aggressor on the most part of the Rivers crisis”.
According to the statement, the emergency rule as declared by President Tinubu is premature, in bad faith and authoritarian.
The statement read in part:
“Rather than allow the Rivers State Governor, Similayi Fubara the latitude of exploring and exhausting all reconcilitory options and due process provided by the Nigerian Constitution, President Tinubu hurriedly moved to preempt the constitutional democratic powers of the State government to impose Emergency, ostensibly to smash opposition influence in Rivers State.
“In the light of the precipitate action of the APC-led federal government against the PDP-led Rivers State, we wish to assert that the federal government intervention would be deemed one sided and unjust, especially if Nyesom Wike, former governor of rivers state, now a protege of the federal government, who is an arrowhead and lead actor in the Rivers Crisis, is not suspended from office as a Minister but let loose to continue to ride roughshod on other political stakeholders of Rivers State.
“For us, the Rivers crisis is a clear case of two parties embroiled in a power struggle for State control. Therefore, if Wike is not suspended as Minister, the federal government in its intervention would be seen to be helping a party in the crisis against the other, specifically supporting its protege hibernating in Abuja against the Governor of Rivers State since the crisis is a pure power tussle between Wike and Fubara and nothing more.
“To this end, we call on the National Assembly to reject the unjust, precipitate and illegitimate Presidential Order on the Rivers State by refusing to give parliamentary approval to the State of Emergency foisted by APC led Presidency on PDP governed Rivers State as the order preempted due process of resolving the crisis and also violated the principle of fairness and equity in conflict resolution as the matter was yet to get out of hand.
“In the same vein, we wish to urge the Nigerian opposition, especially, leaders of the People’s Democratic Party, PDP to immediately rise to call off the bluff of the growing recklessness and political rascality of Mr Nyesom Wike, FCT Minister, for daring to revoke the tenancy rights of PDP property on which the Party’s National Headquarters in Abuja is situated, apparently to intimidate and demobilize the opposition in the political reckoning for the 2027 elections.
“Finally, With the way Wike has been conducting himself like a political bull in a China Shop, it has become imperative for the President to immediately call Wike to order as he is likely to put the Tinubu government into a big trouble with political stakeholders in the country, especially the good people of the Niger Delta. The rascality and recklessness of Wike has to stop now or be stopped by Nigerians”.
