The Federal Government has been warned that the suspension of Simi Fubara, the Governor of Rivers State for the initial six months period, may aggravate aggressions in the Niger Delta area.
In a bid to avoid the impending crisis, the Federal Government has been told to rescind its decision for the peace of the nation.
Dr. Emeka Kalu, Director-General, Global Initiatives For Good Governance (GIGG), a Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO), gave this warning in a statement to journalists on Wednesday.
Kalu in the statement, warned that the renewed hostilities in the coastal state would negatively affect the nation’s economy.
He insisted that the current political crisis in the state did not require such a strict measure of emergency rules taken by the Federal Government, maintaining that the fragility of the region to violence should be taken into consideration.
He described the suspension of the governor as an attack on democratic processes, declaring that the excuses given by the Federal Government for the suspension were irrelevant in the constitution.
Kalu insisted that it behooved on the Federal Government to provide security to all its installations across the country, saying that blaming such on the governor amounted to travesty of justice.
He added: “I advise the government to quickly rescind this decisions and find a better option of addressing the challenges than quickly resorting to usurping the power of the governor to please and serve the interests of an anointed gladiator who sees himself as the political deity that must be appeased before governance and other government-related activities can be enhanced.
“The declaration of an emergency rule in Rivers State does not only throttle the wheels of the nation’s surviving democracy, but also an infraction of the law establishing Nigeria as a federating state.
“By the virtues of the law under which a federal system is constitutionally governed, it is exclusively the responsibility of the government at the centre to provide security for federal infrastructure, not the component units.”
Kalu continued that in the exclusive list, the national government was solely responsible for defence, noting that apportioning blames on the State Government for security breaches that led to the attack on federal infrastructure located in the state to a large extent exposed the weakness of the Federal Government in securing its national assets.
The Director-General expressed that Fubara should not be expected to draft security operatives to secure national assets, rather it was the constitutional function of the President as obtainable in a federal presidential system.
He suspected that some allies and enemies of the state were responsible for the sacrifice of peace in the state and urged the Federal Government to look beyond the State Government.
He warned that a democracy that stifled opposition hardly stood the test of time, expressing that Nigeria was taken back to the era of fascism where power was coercively wielded against the constitution and interest of the people.
“This is one of the darkest moments of the prevailing political standoff in Rivers State and going by the body language of the Federal Government, it invariably means Nigeria has finally lost her democratic values as a nation, thereby mocking our national anthem on the philosophy of justice and human rights – ‘A nation where no one is oppressed’ as recited has lost its values and dignity,” he added.