Rivers’ state of emergency is ended by Tinubu.
By:OVL News I 17 September 2025
Rivers State’s six-month state of emergency has ended, according to President Bola Tinubu, who also declared that Governor Siminalayi Fubara, his deputy Ngozi Nma Odu, and members of the State House of Assembly will resume their duties on Thursday, September 18, 2025.
In a statement issued by the Presidency on Wednesday, Tinubu claimed that the state of emergency, which was initially declared on March 18, 2025, was required to stop the “total paralysis of governance” that was then engulfing Rivers.
As a result, I am pleased to announce that the emergency in Nigeria’s Rivers State will expire at midnight today.
“On September 18, 2025, members of the Rivers State House of Assembly, including the speaker Martins Amaewhule, the governor, His Excellency Siminalayi Fubara, and the deputy governor, Her Excellency Ngozi Nma Odu, will return to their offices,” he stated.
He recalled that the state had no working administration due to a dispute between the governor and 27 MPs who supported the House Speaker; in fact, the Supreme Court had confirmed in one of its decisions that “there was no government in Rivers State.”
Therefore, it became brutally obvious that I would have to declare a state of emergency using the authority granted to me by Section 305 of the 1999 Constitution, as amended, in order to stop Rivers State’s spiral into chaos.
In the first case, elected members of the State House of Assembly, the governor, and the deputy governor were all placed on six-month leave. Today, September 17, 2025, marks the end of the six months, Tinubu stated.
He clarified that the National Assembly supported the intervention, which suspended the governor’s and deputy governor’s offices as well as all State House of Assembly members in an effort to restore peace and order.
Tinubu insisted that the action was constitutionally legitimate, although admitting that more than 40 lawsuits were filed to contest the statement. He emphasized that “it would have been a colossal failure on my part as President not to have made that proclamation.”
The President was pleased with what he called a “groundswell of a new spirit of understanding” among Rivers’ political stakeholders, which he said supports lifting the emergency when its original six-month period is over.
“I am pleased to see that, based on the information at my disposal, there is a strong desire for an immediate return to democratic governance in Rivers State, as well as a new spirit of understanding and readiness,” he stated.
“This is definitely a positive step for me and a noteworthy accomplishment for us. As a result, I fail to see why the state of emergency should last any longer than the six months I declared at the outset.
In order to ensure that Nigerians benefit from democracy, Tinubu took use of the opportunity to call on state assemblies and governors across to prioritize harmony between the legislative and executive branches of government.
Since Tinubu proclaimed a state of emergency in Rivers State, Vice Admiral Ibok-Ete Ekwe Ibas (retd.) has been acting as the state’s only administrator.
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