Otunba Segun Showunmi, convener of the National Opposition Movement Coalition (NOMC), a platform aimed at fostering grassroots consensus for the selection of future leaders and a chieftain of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has strongly condemned the declaration of a state of emergency in Rivers State.
Showunmi noted that at play in Rivers State was the weakness of multiparty democracy because of its elite factions and desperate competition.
According to a statement he personally signed on Wednesday and populated on his social media platforms, Showunmi said Nigeria’s democracy must not become so weak to the extent that it would stand by and tolerate the destabilization of the state.
It is recalled that President Bola Tinubu, on Tuesday in a nationwide address on the crisis rocking Rivers State, declared Vice Admiral Ibokette Ibas (Rtd) as Administrator to take charge of the state.
Below is Showunmi’s full statement reproduced hereunder:
State of Emergency in Rivers State.
When a naive sociopath has a challenge with a garrulous narcissist and a selfish psychopath is called to judge. The Leader finds himself between the devil and a deep place and certainly doing nothing can never be leadership.
How a people of hitherto the same caucus, producing all candidates from the same stable failed to see that refusing to halt their childishness beats me. In the long run, the one perceived as the bully will lose and the victim always currying the sympathy of the masses always wins. It might not look like it today but time and time again nature and everything within it tends to judge it so.
Decent people in society are bound to be uneasy, and it makes democracy tedious for the minimum level of discipline required to sustain it is missing, the casualty of the selfishness of the players who dance naked before all eyes. Is just most unfortunate.
At play in Rivers State is the weakness of multiparty democracy because of its elite factions and desperate competition.
It is the reason some nations like China do not support the Western idea. We can see that is failing in its environment and it will fail in Africa where we cannot see significant satisfaction of our people nor the rapid movement of our people out of ignorance. It is time for us to rethink and reinterrogate what we are doing.
Our Judiciary needs a complete overhaul not just because of this one judgment which to my mind did not properly reflect on the ramifications of their pronouncement, the sublime issue is a massive overreach wherein both Abdulmalik and the Supreme Court delved into issues that strictly speaking were not before them in the case of the Supreme Court or had no jurisdiction over in the case of Justice Abdulmalik. The judiciary cannot and must not appear to serve interests other than the well-being of the citizens and the safety and stability of the nation.
The idea that nonstate actors under whatever name called will be allowed to blow up national assets and get away with it must be met with the full weight of force available to the state.
For the sake of our Republic, we must come up with a comprehensive national orientation with bite to save ourselves from the irritating culture of narrative overheating of the polity by citizens who seem to have lost the borderline of jiving and are now crossing to a higher than normal lack of patriotism that does not give room for cohesive nation building.
This is extremely dangerous as selfish politicians especially those who should know better must be reminded that treason and treasonable felony are crimes and they had better watch it.
Democracy must not become so weak to the extent that it will stand by and tolerate the destabilization of the state.
My heart and spirit are with Nigerians who are genuinely concerned and the people of Rivers State.
Otunba Segun Showunmi
The Alternative.
