Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has strongly condemned President Bola Tinubu’s declaration of a state of emergency in Rivers State, describing it as an act of “political manipulation and outright bad faith.”
Atiku accused Tinubu of being a partisan actor in the state’s crisis and failing to prevent its escalation.
“Anyone paying attention to the unfolding crisis knows that Bola Tinubu has been a vested partisan actor in the political turmoil engulfing Rivers. His blatant refusal — or calculated negligence — in preventing this escalation is nothing short of disgraceful,” Atiku stated.
He further argued that the security breaches leading to the destruction of national infrastructure in Rivers were a direct consequence of the Tinubu administration’s failure to govern effectively.
“Tinubu cannot evade responsibility for the chaos his administration has either enabled or failed to prevent,” he added.
Atiku expressed concerns that the unrest in Rivers could set back years of peace in the Niger Delta, undoing the stability secured under former President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua.
“It is an unforgivable failure that under Tinubu’s watch, the Niger Delta has been thrown back into an era of violent unrest and instability — undoing the hard-won peace secured by the late President Umaru Yar’Adua,” he said.
He concluded by insisting that Tinubu must take full responsibility for the security breakdown, stating that punishing the people of Rivers State for political disputes between the governor and the federal government was “nothing less than an assault on democracy and must be condemned in the strongest terms.”
