State Of Emergency: Why Fubara Ignored Tinubu – APC Chieftain, Tonye Cole

The All Progressives Congress (APC) governorship candidate in the 2023 Rivers State election, Tonye Cole, has asserted that a governor cannot abruptly ignore the president.

The APC chieftain made this known while commenting on President Bola Tinubu’s declaration of a state of emergency in Rivers State.

Naijaonpoint reported that Tinubu, during a nationwide broadcast on Tuesday, March 18, 2025, expressed concern over the political turmoil engulfing the oil-rich state, stating that he was greatly disturbed and accused Governor Sim Fubara of demolishing the State House of Assembly building.

He added that after evaluating the situation, he had decided to declare a state of emergency on 18 March.

Part of his statement reads, “I have made personal interventions between the contending parties for a peaceful resolution of the crisis, but my efforts have been largely ignored by the parties to the crisis.”

During an interview on Channels Television, Cole said Governor Fubara might have ignored President Tinubu if the solution presented to him was so one-sided or if he felt that the solution did not address the issue at all.

He said, “I believe both parties have to be punished if they truly ignored the President.

“But I don’t think that the President said that—if I heard him right. I may be wrong; I may have to look at it again. But if I heard him correctly, I believe he said that the person or the side that was ignoring him was the governor and his team. That he had spoken to them, and they ignored him.

“I believe that’s what I heard. If that is the case, then the question would be: what were the conditions that were put forward that then led him to be ignored?

”A president is a very powerful force, and if a state governor chooses to ignore a president, then it must mean one of two things. Either the solution presented to the governor was so one-sided that he felt it was unfair and not worth obeying, or he felt that the solution did not address the issue at hand at all.

“Now, whether to ignore it or go back to address it would be a different issue.”