ABUJA, Sept. 18 — Nigerian President Bola Tinubu has announced an end to a six-month emergency rule in the country’s oil-rich Rivers State, following a truce in a prolonged political impasse.
In a statement he personally signed on Wednesday, Tinubu directed Rivers State Governor Siminalayi Fubara, the deputy governor, and members of the State House of Assembly to resume duties on Thursday, marking the end of the emergency rule headed by a sole administrator since March 18.
The decision followed the “restoration of peace and order in the state,” the Nigerian leader said, noting that the state of emergency would cease from midnight Wednesday.
While proclaiming the emergency rule in March, Tinubu had highlighted various reasons for the decision, including “a total paralysis of governance in Rivers State, which had led to the governor of Rivers State and the House of Assembly being unable to work together.”
Critical economic assets of the state, including oil pipelines, were allegedly vandalized, and the State House of Assembly was reportedly crisis-ridden, with members divided into two groups.
The president recalled that only four members worked with the governor, while 27 members opposed him.
The latter group supported the speaker of the local parliament. “That serious constitutional impasse brought governance in the state to a standstill.
Even the Supreme Court, in one of its judgments in a series of cases filed by the executive and the legislative arms of Rivers State against each other, held that there was no government in Rivers State.
My intervention, along with that of other well-meaning Nigerians, to resolve the conflict proved abortive, as both sides remained rigidly entrenched in their positions, to the detriment of peace and the state’s development,” the president said.
With the crisis resolved and calm restored, Tinubu emphasized the importance of returning to democratic governance and institutional stability in Rivers State. (Xinhua)
