Six months after declaring the emergency rule in Rivers State, President Bola Tinubu has announced its end, reinstating Governor Siminalayi Fubara and other suspended officials, who are set to resume on Thursday, September 18.

Retired Vice Admiral Ibok-Ete Ibas was vested with the role of Rivers’ sole administrator following the Presidency’s federal intervention amid the political tussle between Governor Fubara and the state legislature. However, in his statement dated September 17, the president said intelligence gathered from the oil-rich state indicated a “groundswell of a new spirit of understanding, robust readiness, and potent enthusiasm’’ among the political stakeholders, necessitating the decision not to extend the suspension beyond the six-month period.

“It therefore gives me great pleasure to declare that the emergency in Rivers State of Nigeria shall end with effect from midnight today. The Governor, His Excellency Siminalayi Fubara, the deputy governor, Her Excellency Ngozi Nma Odu, and members of the Rivers State House of Assembly, including the speaker, Martins Amaewhule, will resume work in their offices from 18 September 2025,” the president’s statement read in part.

“I take this opportunity to remind the governors and the Houses of Assembly of all the States of our country to continue to appreciate that it is only in an atmosphere of peace, order, and good government that we can deliver the dividends of democracy to our people. I implore all of you to let this realisation drive your actions at all times.”

The emergency declaration triggered more than 40 legal challenges, mostly from opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)–governed states, in courts across Abuja, Port Harcourt, and Yenagoa. The Presidency, while acknowledging the “dissent,’’ defended the six-month emergency rule as an “inbuilt constitutional tool to address situations of actual or threatened breakdown of public order and public safety, which require extraordinary measures to return the State to peace, order, and security.”

This marks President Tinubu’s first major directive after his early return to Nigeria on Wednesday, September 17, from a 10-day working visit to London and the much-scrutinised Paris. Meanwhile, the Coalition of United Political Parties (CUPP) has criticised the Supreme Court for acting passively as the six-month emergency ran its course in Rivers without heeding petitions from the PDP.