On the evening of 18 March 2025, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu issued Proclamation No. 1 of 2025 declaring a state of emergency in Rivers State for an initial period of six months under section 305 of the 1999 Constitution. The Proclamation suspended Governor Siminalayi Fubara, Deputy Governor Prof. Ngozi Odu and all members of the Rivers State House of Assembly, and appointed retired Vice-Admiral Ibok-Ete Ekwe Ibas (former Chief of the Naval Staff, 2015–2021) as Sole Administrator with full executive authority over the state.
The declaration followed a protracted political crisis between Fubara and his predecessor and political godfather, FCT Minister Nyesom Wike: a divided House of Assembly with parallel speakers (Martins Amaewhule and Edison Ehie), demolition of the Assembly Complex in December 2023, repeated Supreme Court rulings (most recently SC/CV/1071/2024, 28 February 2025) holding that the Fubara-aligned faction was not the lawfully constituted Assembly, and a sequence of pipeline explosions on the Trans-Niger Pipeline in mid-March 2025 cited by the Presidency as a national-security trigger.
The two chambers of the National Assembly approved the Proclamation by voice vote on 20 March 2025 — a procedure later challenged as falling short of the two-thirds majority of all members required by section 305(6)(b) of the Constitution. The Nigerian Bar Association, under President Afam Osigwe SAN, issued a formal statement on 19 March 2025 describing the suspension of elected officials as 'unknown to the Constitution': section 305 permits emergency powers but does not, NBA argued, authorise the President to remove a governor, deputy governor or state legislators. A consolidated suit brought by eleven PDP-controlled states (KT/HCV/100/2025 and connected cases) was filed at the Supreme Court in April 2025 seeking a declaration that the suspension was ultra vires.
During the six-month emergency, Vice-Admiral Ibas governed by Sole Administrator's Orders, appointed care-taker committees over the 23 local government areas, presented a supplementary budget approved by the National Assembly rather than the State Assembly, and oversaw a security-led restoration of pipeline operations in Andoni and Gokana.
On 18 September 2025 the Proclamation expired by effluxion of time. President Tinubu, in a broadcast to the nation, announced the restoration of Governor Fubara, Deputy Governor Odu and the State Assembly, contingent on a political settlement brokered by the National Peace Committee and the Council of State that required Fubara to drop pending suits against the Wike-aligned faction and accept a unified Assembly leadership. The constitutional challenges remained pending before the Supreme Court at the date of restoration.
The Rivers emergency is the first invocation of section 305 in a Nigerian state since the May 2013 declarations over Borno, Yobe and Adamawa under President Goodluck Jonathan, and the first ever to suspend elected state officials rather than supplement them — a precedent the Nigerian Bar Association, Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC) and the editorial boards of Premium Times, BusinessDay and The Guardian have flagged as potentially destabilising of the federal compact.