The Former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar, has criticized the declaration of State of Emergency in Rivers State by President Bola Tinubu. .
The President, in a nationwide broadcast on Tuesday declared State of emergency in the state, citing the growing crisis in the state.
According to Atiku, it is a politically motivated move.
This was contained in a statement issued on Tuesday by the former presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the 2023 election.
He accused President Tinubu of being a “vested partisan actor” in the ongoing political crisis in Rivers State.
“The declaration of a state of emergency in Rivers State reeks of political manipulation and outright bad faith,” he said.
Stressing that the federal government’s actions were an attempt to escalate tensions in the state rather than find a peaceful resolution, he stated that Tinubu’s failure to intervene constructively had worsened the crisis.
“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 said.
He also attributed the rising insecurity in the Niger Delta region to the policies of the Tinubu administration,
Atiku pointed out that years of stability achieved under former President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua were being eroded now.
“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.
The people of Rivers State, he said, should not suffer because of the political rift between Governor Siminalayi Fubara and the federal government.
“Punishing the people of Rivers State just to serve the political gamesmanship between the governor and Tinubu’s enablers in the federal government is nothing less than an assault on democracy and must be condemned in the strongest terms,” Atiku stated.