Atiku
Tony Ezimakor, Abuja
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Former Vice Atiku Abubakar has reacted angrily to the President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’ s broadcast declaring a state of emergency in Rivers State and sacking the state governor, Siminalayi Fubara.
The PDP presidential flag bearer in the 2023 general election, in a statement, said the presidential intervention was part of political calculations of an administration he alleged has vested partisan interest in the political turmoil that has now engulfed the oil-rich state.
He further railed that the emergency in Rivers State reeks of political manipulation and outright bad faith.
Tinubu in his broadcast, sacking the governor and the state assembly maintained that his various interventions in the protracted political crisis fell on deaf ears, noting that actions or inactions of the political players have stifled governance in the state.
Atiku Abubakar, however, is persuaded to the contrary.
“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.
“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.”
He regretted that present administration has for its perceived political advantage allowed the Niger Delta to again slip into another era of violence, undoing the hard -won peace by the late President Umaru Yar’Adua.
He insisted that Tinubu cannot evade responsibility to protect federal infrastructure in Rivers State amid the uncertainties and turmoil orchestrated by federal enablers in that state
“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 Tinubu’s enablers in the Federal Government is nothing less than an assault on democracy and must be condemned in the strongest terms. -AA”
