Former Governor Nasir El-Rufai has condemned President Bola Tinubu’s declaration of a state of emergency in Rivers and warned about the potential snowballing of his decision into a catastrophe as witnessed during the 1962 Old Western Region maelstrom.

Mr El-Rufai, an estranged ally of Mr Tinubu, reminded the president of his avowed opposition to emergency rule during the reign of then-President Goodluck Jonathan in 2013.

“Let us not keep silent while the slippery slope of replicating the events of emergency rule in the Old Western Region in 1962 unfolds before our very eyes,” Mr El-Rufai said in a statement on Wednesday.

The Old Western Region violent conflict was believed to have set in motion the catalogue of coups that later collapsed Nigeria’s democracy for several decades.

The former governor added, “As an opposition figure, Senator Bola Tinubu had made his voice heard against the decision of then President Goodluck Jonathan to declare a state of emergency in the North-East, even when that decision did not extend to the suspension of elected officials and institutions.”

Condemning a state of emergency suspending Governor Siminalayi Fubara, his deputy and all elected officials, Mr El-Rufai explained that the Nigerian Constitution “does not support it precisely because it is dangerous to our system of democratic federalism for an elected president to assume and exercise powers to suspend elected officials at the state level.”

Mr El-Rufai called Mr Tinubu’s proclamation of an emergency rule “a wanton aggression against democratic tenets and the rule of law.”

Mr Tinubu’s suspension of Mr Fubara, his deputy, and other elected officials in Rivers was condemned by several Nigerians, including Atiku Abubakar, Peter Obi, and Rotimi Amaechi.

Meanwhile, Mr Tinubu swore in the newly appointed sole of Rivers, Ibok Ekwe Ibas, at the State House on Wednesday.