Tinubu’s Coup Against the Constitution, By Abdul Mahmud
posted 23rd March 2025
Tinubu’s Coup Against the Constitution, By Abdul Mahmud
March 23, 2025
President Tinubu’s declaration of a state of emergency in Rivers State, accompanied by the suspension of the duly elected governor and the House of Assembly for six months, is a direct assault on the 1999 Constitution. It is an authoritarian power grab that undermines the fundamental principles of federalism and threatens the very survival of democracy in our country. By invoking Section 305 of the Constitution to justify the proclamation, Tinubu cloaks his unconstitutional act in the language of legality. But, no amount of disingenuous manoeuvring can disguise what is, in effect, the president's coup against the Constitution.
Section 305 of the Constitution provides the grounds under which the President may declare a state of emergency. These include war, insurrection, natural disasters, and other grave threats to the security and stability of our country. Nowhere does it provide for the suspension of elected institutions. The framers of the Constitution did not design this section as a tool for the president government to impose federal rule on a subnational State, nor as a mechanism to override the democratic will of the people. This is a dangerous precedent that should alarm our citizens, regardless of political creed and affiliations.
I digress briefly to a subject that illuminates how totalitarian rulers persist in distorting reality with their lies. In a recent conversation with my friend and comrade from the 1990s student movement, Chijioke Uwasomba, Professor of Comparative Literature at Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, I reflected on rulers who, in their disdain for truth, cannot be trusted to adhere to simple rules or common sense. Little did I know that, just days later, Tinubu would vindicate my Arendtian framing of reality that exposes rulers who hold "out promises of stability in order to hide their intention of creating a state of permanent instability."
And so, it is to Hannah Arendt I turn. In her seminal work, The Origins of Totalitarianism, Arendt warns against the tendency of rulers to consolidate power by manufacturing crises and using them as justification for extraordinary measures. She argues that totalitarianism does not emerge overnight; it takes root when democratic institutions are systematically undermined under the pretext of restoring order.
By taking over Rivers State, and overstepping his constitutional bounds, Tinubu imperils the Republic and ignites the retreat of democracy.
Totalitarian rulers have long exploited emergency powers as a pretext for subverting the constitution and democracy, perverting authority and expanding the presidential powers of control, turning crises into opportunities for unchecked dominance. In countries where democracy has been subverted, the playbook is often the same: create or exaggerate a crisis, present executive action as the only solution, and neutralise democratic checks on power. The German Reichstag Fire of 1933 provided Adolf Hitler with the excuse to invoke emergency decrees that ultimately dismantled democratic governance. In Turkey, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan used the 2016 coup attempt to justify a prolonged state of emergency, during which he arrested opposition figures and consolidated personal power. Our country now finds itself at a similar crossroads. Now that Tinubu has been allowed to unilaterally uproot a state government under the pretext of a state of emergency, with the National Assembly’s blessing, what assurance is there that he won’t extend this overreach to other states at will?
I am sure students of jurisprudence are familiar with Hans Kelsen, one of the foremost legal theorists of the 20th century, who argued that democracy is defined not merely by the act of voting but by the existence of legal constraints on power. A system in which elected officials can be removed by executive fiat ceases to be a democracy in any meaningful sense. Kelsen warned against the phenomenon of "authoritarian legalism," where rulers manipulate the law not to safeguard democratic order but to subvert it. Tinubu’s proclamation on Rivers State exemplifies this danger, as he twisted the Constitution and secured the National Assembly’s support through means that a section of the media described as bribery, all to justify an action entirely at odds with our constitutional democracy. The courts should, in principle, serve as the ultimate arbiter, as Kelsen rightly argued: "since precisely in the most important cases of constitutional violation, the parliament and the executive branch (Regierung) are the disputing parties, to decide the dispute it makes sense to call upon a third authority that stands apart from this conflict and is not itself involved in any way in the exercise of power." Unfortunately, in our case, the National Assembly and the President are not at odds. The National Assembly, particularly the opposition parties inside it, which ought to have rejected the President’s proclamation outright, capitulated with astonishing ease as it turned the legislative gavel towards the arc of our Constitution and shifted our reality of constitutional legalism to authoritarian legalism, while surrendering its role as the legislative watchdog.
With the legislature having abdicated its duty, attention must now turn to our courts that are frequently criticised for their deference to executive power. Given the deep-seated distrust and waning confidence citizens have in them, will they rise to their constitutional mandate and dismantle this dangerous precedent, or will they, too, shrink into acquiescence, allowing history to record their failure at a moment of grave consequence? Will the courts summon the courage to call chukuchuku by its name?
Our country's federal structure was designed to prevent exactly this kind of federal overreach. The 1999 Constitution, despite its flaws, guarantees a level of autonomy to subnational States. Governors are elected by the people of their states, not appointed by the President. State legislatures exist to represent the interests of their constituents, not to be dissolved at the whim of the federal government. By suspending these institutions, Tinubu has effectively abolished Rivers State’s right to self-governance. This is a betrayal of the federal principle and a move that echoes the worst abuses of military rule.
Our country has walked this treacherous path before. Despite the promise of governance stability that the return to democracy brought in 1999, it was Obasanjo who first steered the nation back onto this unconstitutional course, invoking a state of emergency in Plateau and Ekiti States and suspending their governors for six months. Now, with his actions in Rivers State, Tinubu deepens the perilous legacy of the Obasanjo-isation of executive overreach that our citizens had hoped was consigned to history. What this suggests is that despite twenty five years of civilian rule, our country has not fully escaped the shadows of dictators who pass themselves off as democrats. The implications of this unconstitutional act go beyond Rivers State. If allowed to stand, it creates a dangerous precedent that will embolden future presidents to dismantle suspend governors and dismantle democratic structures of the subnational States whenever they see fit. It is Rivers today; tomorrow, it could be Osun, Kano, or any other State where the ruling party faces political challenges. Democracy, they say dies in darkness; but it also dies through the normalisation of executive overreach and the complacency of the opposition that should resist it.
Democracy is not sustained by laws alone but by the willingness of citizens to defend it. The danger of authoritarianism is that it often comes disguised as a necessary solution to disorder. It promises stability at the cost of freedom, order at the cost of rights. Tinubu’s action in Rivers State is being framed as a necessary intervention to resolve a political crisis, but our citizens must see it for what it truly is: a test of whether they are willing to stand up for the constitution or allow our democracy to be destroyed on the altar of political expediency.
The lesson of history is clear: once rulers are permitted to violate the Constitution without consequence, there is no guarantee that they will stop. The slide into authoritarian rule is rarely immediate; it happens incrementally, with each abuse of power setting the stage for the next. If Tinubu’s coup against the Rivers State government is tolerated, there will be no stopping future rulers from taking even more extreme measures. There is still time to correct this course. The courts can still reaffirm the supremacy of the Constitution.
The people can still demand accountability. But the window for action is closing, closing fast on us.
