Award-winning Nigerian Author, Professor Wole Soyinka, expressed dissatisfaction with President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s hasty declaration of a state of emergency in Rivers State.
In a recent interview with Channels Television on Sunday, he explained that the President failed to utilize his emergency powers judiciously to present a better solution to the crisis in Rivers State, instead opting for a state of emergency.
In his opinion, lighter measures could have been adopted to address the situation in Rivers State. According to him, the affected politicians should conduct further investigations to determine if President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s decision was indeed illegal and unconstitutional, as claimed by several individuals.
His words: “There are areas of discretion and you are right to say that this wholesale of suspension of everything in the government, I think it is over excessive within the right and powers, let’s assume that the President is constitutionally right but within these parts, there are also areas of discretion.
“I think that the wholesale scuttling of democratic existence in Rivers was excessive. I think it could have been managed more economically. I think the President did not economize on his presidential emergency powers”.