Atiku blasts Tinubu for declaring state of emergency in Rivers

Atiku Abubakar, former Vice President.

Former Vice President, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, has lambasted President Bola Tinubu for declaring a state of emergency in Rivers State following a lingering and unresolved political crisis that led to the bombing of pipeline infrastructure in Rivers.

Atiku said the development reeks of political manipulation and outright bad faith.

The former VP blamed the president for the crisis in Rivers, accusing him of being a “Partisan actor in the political turmoil engulfing Rivers.”

Atiku, who took to X to react to the development shortly after the president suspended Governor Siminalayi Fubara, his deputy and members of the state House of Assembly in a nationwide broadcast on Tuesday, March 18, 2025.

Tinubu said, “I feel greatly disturbed by the political crisis in Rivers. The state has been at a standstill, and the people have been deprived of good governance.

“Fourteen months after Governor Fubara demolished the House of Assembly, it remains unbuilt. Many Nigerians have intervened, just as I did. But their efforts have been to no avail.

“No responsible President will stand by without taking action. To restore good governance and peace in this circumstance, it has become imperative to declare a state of emergency.

“By this declaration, Governor Fubara is hereby suspended.”

However, in his reaction, Atiku said it is disgraceful that the president refused to stop the crisis from escalating.

“Anyone paying attention to the unfolding crisis knows that Bola Tinubu has been a vested partisan actor in the political turmoil engulfing Rivers.

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“His blatant refusal or calculated negligence in preventing this escalation is nothing short of disgraceful.

Beyond the political scheming in Rivers, the brazen security breaches that led to the condemnable destruction of national infrastructure in the state land squarely on the President’s desk.

“Tinubu cannot evade responsibility for the chaos his administration has either enabled or failed to prevent,” Atiku said.

Continuing, the former Vice President said it is a failure on the part of the president that the Niger Delta region has been thrown back into era of unrest, adding that the president should bear responsibility for the bombing of pipeline infrastructure in the region.

“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. Years of progress have been recklessly erased in pursuit of selfish political calculations.

“If federal infrastructure in Rivers has been compromised, the President bears full responsibility. Punishing the people of Rivers State just to serve the political gamesmanship between the governor and @officialABAT’s enablers in the federal government is nothing less than an assault on democracy and must be condemned in the strongest,” Atiku stated.