Ever since the fight for power and control commenced in Rivers State between Governor Siminalayi Fubara and his immediate predecessor and current Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Minister, Nyesom Wike, it was obvious the two groups were going for broke. While Fubara may have lulled himself to proclaim, as he did last May, that the ‘Jungle has matured’ enough for him to take the fight to his godfather, he didn’t reckon with the deployment of federal might. On Tuesday, he learnt his lesson the hard way when President Bola Tinubu declared a state of emergency that ousted him from office by appointing an administrator for Rivers State. Unfortunately, we have been down this dangerous route before, and it is always a slippery slope.

Although the crisis in Rivers State started immediately Wike left office, it took five months to blow open in October 2023, when some lawmakers loyal to him initiated impeachment proceedings against Fubara. “All of us want to be politically relevant; all of us want to maintain our political structure,” Wike said in response to allegations that he was behind the surreptitious attempt to oust the governor. “Will you allow anybody to just cut you out immediately? Everybody has a base. If you take my base, am I not politically irrelevant?”

Like the position taken by President Donald Trump on the war between Russia and Ukraine, President Tinubu took sides with Wike while urging Fubara to compromise for peace to reign in his state. What followed was the bombing of a section of the House of Assembly complex by forces loyal to the governor who then relocated the legislative arm to the Government House, Port Harcourt. And with 27 members ostracised, Fubara began to govern with four lawmakers domiciled within his office—making nonsense of the separation of powers doctrine on which the presidential system is anchored and without which there can be no transparency and accountability in governance.

Meanwhile, it is interesting that Tinubu is doing the same things he attacked his predecessors for before he became president. When in 2013, Jonathan declared a state of emergency in three states, Tinubu said the country was “witnessing a dangerous trend in the art of governance and a deliberate ploy to subvert constitutional democracy.” In a statement he personally signed, Tinubu called on “those who love this country genuinely (to) advise the federal government not to tinker with the mandates of these Governors under any guise. It is a potentially destructive path to take.” He added: “Any measures put in place which alienate the people, in particular their elected representatives, should be considered as fundamentally defective by every right-thinking person in the country.”

Jonathan did not even remove the governors, yet Tinubu wrote a damning statement ‘in defence of democracy’. But the hypocrisy is understandable. Handlers of every sitting president have always seen declaration of emergency as a political tool that could deploy against opponents. On 3rd June 2014, for instance, the late Ijaw Leader, Chief Edwin Clark, accused then Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, Mohammed Bello Adoke, SAN, of ‘misadvising’ President Goodluck Jonathan, in a 16-page letter he (Clark) still decided to read to the media. After citing the examples of President Olusegun Obasanjo who used ‘emergency powers’ to suspend Dariye (Plateau State) on 18th May 2004 and Ayo Fayose (Ekiti State) on 19th October 2006, Clark wondered why Jonathan was being prevented by Adoke to apply the same principle to oust Governors Kashim Shettima (Borno), Murtala Nyako (Adamawa) and Ibrahim Geidam (Yobe). “The President needs to suspend the affected states’ political structures because the roles of these governors have revealed them as conspirators who are hiding under the guise of opposition to display their politics of bitterness, hatred, ethnicity and religion to disparage him and scuttle Jonathan’s constitutional right to seek a second term as guaranteed by the 1999 Constitution,” Clark wrote.

I believed at the time, and still do so today, that Adoke sided with the law and Jonathan acted correctly on the issue. I therefore consider the action taken by President Tinubu on the crisis in Rivers State as self-serving, and to use his own words, “setting in motion a chain of events the end of which nobody can predict.” But before I conclude, let me take also a few excerpts from my June 2014 column:

“When in May 2004, President Obasanjo suspended from office Governor Dariye and members of the House of Assembly while appointing a Sole Administrator for Plateau State, the consensus of most prominent lawyers at the time was that he acted beyond his powers. From Chief FRA Williams to Professors Ben Nwabueze and Itse Sagay, the argument was that there is nothing in the Constitution that so empowers the president to take the actions he did. In fact, rather uncharacteristically, the late Williams issued a legal position which he circulated to the media. Titled ‘Illegality and Unconstitutionality of President Olusegun Obasanjo’s Declaration of Emergency and Suspension of the Governor and Parliament of Plateau State’ and dated 22 May 2004, ‘Timi The Law’ (as he was fondly called) wrote: “There is no provision contained in any part of our Constitution which confers such a power on the President. It is a contradiction of all known principles of true federation operating in a democratic society. The Governor is elected by the people of the state. So are the members of the House of Assembly. It was a recognition of these facts that informed the provisions inserted in our Constitution relating to the exercise of emergency powers…”

However, having spent several hours at the United States Information Service (USIS) in Lagos, scouring through documents and papers, I wrote a two-part column that I gathered earned me the sobriquet of ‘good boy’ at the villa at a period I was very critical of the Obasanjo presidency. Since the usual refrain in the country at that time was “this cannot happen in America”, I had relied on a 1989 document of the Library of Congress titled ‘Powers of the Presidency’ to suggest that such assumption was not entirely correct. Of course, it didn’t matter at the time that my intervention was more an academic exercise on the powers of the presidency than an endorsement of what Obasanjo did.

According to the Congressional paper, “this argument that presidents have the authority to violate the Constitution, to ensure the security of the nation, has been used by wartime presidents to justify extraordinary exercises of power. When it is evident that conditions of national peril exist, Congress and the American public have turned to the president for leadership. Under such conditions, Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt stretched, reinterpreted, and in some cases, brazenly violated the Constitution in the name of national security. Their claim to an inherent executive power to safeguard the nation was accepted because the American people generally agreed with their assessment of the gravity of the emergency at hand. Presidential claims of an inherent executive power during a doubtful national emergency, however, will likely fail the test of public and judicial scrutiny…”

The crux of my position was that while a US President might not have removed elected public officials as Obasanjo did, some had also performed no less unconstitutional acts. For that reason, I argued that Obasanjo may have exercised powers beyond what the Constitution specified to curtail a situation that could lead to a breakdown of law and order in Plateau States at the time. I, however, went further to state that in the United States, the National Emergency Act of 1976 (PL94-412) terminated all states of emergency that were in effect until that time while also setting in place procedures for declaring and, more important from the view of many in Congress, terminating future states of emergency.

In the case of Nigeria, the ‘Emergency Powers Act 1961’ which Obasanjo sought to ‘modify’ was no longer in use which meant there was already a legal vacuum for the action he took on Plateau State. To that extent, I asked the National Assembly to look beyond the person of Dariye, ethnic affiliations and the religions members professed, to the larger implications for the future of our democracy. The question I asked them to address was, should the president have the power to suspend Governors and House of Assembly members and if yes, what political structure should be in place in the intervening period of interregnum and for how long…

ENDNOTE:

I wrote the foregoing in 2014 as a rehash of my earlier column published 21 years ago. While President Obasanjo got away with two ‘emergencies’ that ousted governors from office, President Jonathan chose not to travel that route in a commendable act of statesmanship. But the same Tinubu who waxed lyrical about the illegality of such action in the past has suspended the governor and legislature in a state after what is no more than a contrived crisis. The real danger, as we are now seeing in the United States where the powers of the president are being stretched, is that this may be the beginning of testing the limits of many of the assumptions that undergird our democracy in pursuit of self-interest.

In endorsing the suspension of Dariye in my 20 May 2004 column, ‘The President and His Powers’, I took account of the way he mismanaged the ethno-religious killings in his state, and for speaking the ‘we-versus-them’ language of war at a time the people needed peace. But despite my position on Dariye, I nonetheless raised a few pertinent questions that are still relevant today: Can this declaration not become an avenue for mischief makers in some states to put their governors under the siege of violence and then expect the president to wield the big stick? Under a system that is becoming increasingly intolerant of opposing views, are we not susceptible to constitutional dictatorship? Will a successful execution of this emergency order not embolden the president to go the ‘extra mile’ in other extra-constitutional matters, even concerning his term of office? Are we not unwittingly encouraging the creation of an Alberto Fujimori (who as an elected president dissolved the Peruvian Congress and Supreme Court, effectively becoming a dictator)? Have all the available options been explored before this emergency rule? Is it only a ‘military administrator’ that can instil order in a supposedly democratic government?

Like the mother of the dead child in the Biblical story of King Solomon’s judgment, the Rivers State House of Assembly Speaker, Martin Ameawhule, who led Wike’s ground forces against Fubara, has endorsed the presidential proclamation. But my main concern is about the future of our democracy. Considering how the president ‘resolved’ the Lagos State House of Assembly crisis in a manner that saw the return of an impeached Speaker, we should all be afraid of breeding an imperial presidency. With the All Progressives Congress (APC) National Secretary, Ajibola Basiru calling on the president to apply the same formular in Osun State against the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Governor Ademola Adeleke, there may be no end to this ‘Kabiyesi Syndrome’. Especially with a National Assembly whose leadership would only ask the president ‘how many times?’ the moment he asks them to jump!

Clearly, there is a travesty of democratic norms in the hasty declaration of an emergency in Rivers State. But the effect of this haste can only be remedied through the invocation of the power of dialogue as a democratic tool. Such dialogue must be across the partisan aisle. In addition, it remains within the powers of the president to whittle down the influence of those whose political interests may be behind the aggravation of the crisis in Rivers State. Besides, the brand of gunboat politics that necessitated the emergency in the first place must be discouraged. The people of Rivers state deserve better than a show of imperial presidential display and supremacist partisanship.

Emeka Ihedioha at 60

Former Imo State Governor, Hon. Emeka Ihedioha will be 60 on 24th March. That is this coming Monday. Two events are planned for the occasion. First, a colloquium chaired by former President Obasanjo with the theme, ‘Is Democracy failing in Africa?’ at which Bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah will deliver the keynote speech. There will also be a dinner to round it off. I first met Emeka in Abuja in 1992 when he worked in media management under the tutelage of former PUNCH editor, Mr Chris Mammah. I was then a State House Correspondent for African Concord magazine. And we became so close that when he was chasing Ebere (now his wife of 28 years), we were always going to her house together.

Interestingly, apart from his three-year at the Villa as a Senior Special Assistant to then Vice President Atiku Abubakar and his seven-month stint in Imo State, Ihedioha has spent most of his working life with the legislature. During the defunct Third Republic, Emeka was Press Officer to then Senate President, Dr. Iyorchia Ayu and later, Chief Press Secretary to then Deputy Senate President, Chief Albert Legogie. Under the current dispensation, Emeka was also Special Assistant (Media) to the late Dr Chuba Okadigbo (as Senate President) in the 4th Senate. Then in 2003, he contested and was elected to the House of Representatives. During his 12 years in the House, Emeka was at various times, Chief Whip and Deputy Speaker and he made considerable impacts in these positions. Emeka and I started as friends, now we are family. I wish him a most wonderful birthday filled with joy and laughter.

• You can follow me on my X (formerly Twitter) handle, @Olusegunverdict and on www.olusegunadeniyi.com

By Tonye Clinton Jaja

Yesterday, a very senior Editor of THISDAY LAWYER, who is a lawyer invited me to write an article about the ongoing State of Emergency in Rivers State.

So that I would not be accused of being emotional or sentimental because Governor Fubara and myself are both indigenes of Opobo Kingdom of Rivers State, I will simply submit facts here and allow the readers to draw their own conclusions.

The major argument and assertion that I am making is that, assuming though not conceding that Governor Fubara has committed any offence(s), is his suspension and declaration of a State of Emergency, the only penalty (out of many other available penalties) that ought to be imposed?

And why was the same penalty not imposed upon the Governor of Lagos State, (and Obasa) who committed a similar offence?

First of all, I am of the firm conviction that His Excellency Mr President is in violation of Section 305 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 because the conditions precedent have not been met before he went ahead to proclaim a State of Emergency in Rivers State.

The four conditions that I have identified which means that the Proclamation of the said State of Emergency is in violation of various sections of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 and other relevant laws are as follows:

1. Violation of Section 42 of the Nigerian Constitution by preventing our members who are both staff of the Rivers State House of Assembly and the Rivers State Government House, (other officials of the Executive Arm of the Rivers State Government such as Commissioners, Office of the Secretary to the Rivers State Government, etc.) to be involved in gainful employment to earn money to be utilised in acquisition of property through mortgage, etc.;
2. The said Gazette dated 18th March 2025 which purports to appoints a Sole Administrator is a direct violation of section 1(2) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999″ the federal Republic of Nigeria shall not be governed, nor shall any person or group of persons take control of the Government of Nigeria or any part thereof, except in accordance with the provisions of this constitution “;
3. There is no Resolution of the National Assembly in support of the said Gazette as stipulated under Section 305 of the Nigerian Constitution; and
4. There is no primae facie evidence of failure of the said Governor of Rivers State in performance of his duty since after the judgment of the Supreme Court of Nigeria dated February 28th 2025. Therefore, pursuant to the provisions of Freedom of Information Act, 2011, which entitles our both individuals and Non-governmental Organisations to any such documented evidence of dereliction of duty by the said Governor of Rivers State which is a condition precedent before the publication of a Gazette under Section 305 of the Nigerian Constitution.

In a Press Statement issued after the Proclamation of the State of Emergency in Rivers State, the Hon. Attorney-General of the Federation (AGF), has stated that in addition to other offences, Governor Fubara is guilty of “Tele-Guiding” the actions of militants who blew up crude oil pipelines in Rivers State.

This is in addition to the allegation that Governor Fubara also “Tele-Guided” and prevented the functioning of the Rivers State House of Assembly.

With due respect to the AGF, who is a Senior Advocate of Nigeria-SAN, first of all you cannot create a new offence of “Tele-Guiding”, which is not defined in any written offence and then punish the said Governor Fubara on such an offence without any empirical evidence that Governor Fubara committed said offence.

The AGF’s statement is in violation of Section 36(12) of the 1999 Constitution of Nigeria, as amended, which states that a person cannot be convicted of a criminal offense unless that offense is defined and the penalty prescribed in a written law, which includes Acts of the National Assembly, State laws, and subsidiary legislation.

More importantly, the penalty imposed upon Governor Fubara is different and more punitive than Governor of Lagos State who also committed a similar offence of “Tele-Guiding” the Lagos State House of Assembly members to impeach Obasa on 13th January 2025.

Subsequently, Obasa used armed police men to reclaim his position as Speaker of the Lagos State House of Assembly.

In clear violation of the terms of agreement negotiated by His Excellency, Mr. President, Obasa has up till today refused to withdraw the lawsuit that he filed in court.

And even before the settlement meeting with Mr. President himself, Mr. President explored the option of sending emissaries headed by former Governor Akande to meet with Governor Sanwo-Olu, Obasa and legislators of the Lagos State House of Assembly and other stakeholders, to resolve the issues.

So it was not a one-off effort, His Excellency Mr President applied several efforts until an amicable resolution was arrived at in the case of Lagos State!!!

These steps or similar approach were not applied to the crisis in Rivers State!!!

During the week of 12th March 2025, at the meeting held at the Aso Rock, His Excellency Mr President admitted that Governor Sanwo-Olu, was guilty of the crime of “Tele-Guiding” when he was reported to say:

“I See Sanwo-Olu’s Hand In Obasa’s Impeachment And I’m Not Comfortable He Could Be That Powerful,’ Tinubu Tells Lagos Assembly Members” as reported by an online newspaper.

However, till today Governor Sanwo-Olu has not received the same penalty for “Tele-Guiding” that was imposed upon Governor Fubara.

The AGF, started off on a good note, when in the year 2023, he coined the phrase: “legislative fiat” to condemn the National Assembly for enactment of the National Anthem law without prior conduct of public hearing or referendum.

It appears now that the AGF is not as impartial or objective to condemn His Excellency Mr President of committing a similar crime of proclamation of a State of Emergency in Rivers State by way of an “EXECUTIVE FIAT” without taking time to obtain complete empirical evidence against Governor Fubara or conducting a public hearing or referendum to ascertain the public perception.

AGF has not even advised the President of waiting to obtain the two-thirds majority votes of members of the National Assembly before he published the Gazette containing the Proclamation of the State of Emergency in Rivers State.

So it implies that it is either:

1. It is a foregone conclusion that the National Assembly would support the President, which then provides evidence of the sobriquet of the current National Assembly as a “rubber stamp” legislature; and
2. Both the President and the AGF do not give a hoot about strict compliance with the provisions of the Nigerian Constitution!!!

The AGF should bear in mind that he occupies a significant position in the Federal Government of Nigeria by virtue of his current position.

The current AGF is the 24th AGF in the history of Nigeria. He holds the pen, and by his words and actions, he can either inscribe his name in gold or in infamy.

Let me conclude by stating that amongst the previous AGFs, Senator Godwin Kanu Agabi, SAN is one who still commands respect and a positive reputation amongst lawyers!!!!

Below is the list of the former AGFs:

1. HON. JUSTICE TASLIM ELIAS ,CFR, GCON (1960 – 1966);
2. CHIEF G.I.M ONYIUKE, SAN (1st March 1966 – 29th July 1966);
3. DR. NABO GRAHAM DOUGLAS, SAN (1966 – 1972);
4. HON. JUSTICE DAN IBEKWE (1972 – 1975);
5. HON. JUSTICE AUGUSTINE NNAMANI, CON (1975 -1979);
6. CHIEF RICHARD O.A AKINJIDE, SAN (979 -1983);
7. MR KEHINDE SOFOLA, SAN (Oct 1983 – Dec. 1983);
8. MR. CHIKE OFODILE, SAN (1984 – Aug. 1985);
9. PRINCE BOLA AJIBOLA, SAN (12th Sept. 1985 – 4th Dec. 1991);
10. CHIEF CLEMENT AKPAMGBO, SAN (1991 – 1993);
11. DR. OLU ONAGORUWA (993 – 1994);
12. CHIEF. MICHAEL A. AGBAMUCHE, SAN (994 – 1997);
13. MR. ACHIJI ABDULLAHI IBRAHIM, OFR, SAN (1997 – May 1999);
14. HON. KANU GODWIN AGABI, SAN (June 1999 – Jan. 2000);
15. 15 CHIEF BOLA IGE, SAN (3rd Jan. 200 – 23rd Dec. 2001);
16. HON. KANU GODWIN AGABI, SAN (2002 -2003);
17. CHIEF AKIN OLUJIMI, SAN (July 2003 – July 2005);
18. CHIEF BAYO OJO, SAN, FCI ARB, (UK) (July 2005 –July 2007);
19. CHIEF MICHAEL A. AONDOAKAA, SAN (26th July 2007 – 10th Feb. 2010);
20. PRINCE ADETOKUNBO KAYODE, SAN (10th Feb.2010 –17th March 2010);
21. MR. MOHAMMED BELLO ADOKE, SAN, CFR (6th April 2010 – 29th May 2011);
22. MR. MOHAMMED BELLO ADOKE, SAN, CFR ( 2nd July 2011 – May 2015);
23. MR. ABUBAKAR MALAMI, SAN (11th Nov. 2015 to May 2023);
24. Prince Lateef Fagbemi, SAN (16th August 2023 till date).

By Olufunke Baruwa

Over the weekend, the news of Ushie Rita Uguamaye who criticized the government’s failures and voiced her frustration over hardships filled social media. Uguamaye, a National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) member serving in Lagos, Nigeria, faced harsh backlash after posting a video on TikTok criticizing President Bola Tinubu’s administration and the unhygienic state of Lagos state.

In her video, Uguamaye expressed frustration over the nation’s economic hardships, stating that hard work no longer guarantees financial stability. She referred to President Tinubu as a “terrible leader” and described Lagos as a “smelling state,” highlighting poor living conditions and high cost of living – a context that almost every Nigerian can relate to.

Following the video’s viral spread, Uguamaye reported receiving threats, allegedly from NYSC officials, pressuring her to remove the content. She expressed concerns for her safety, stating that the officials had her personal details and were actively seeking her whereabouts. Despite the intimidation, she stood by her statements, emphasizing her right to free speech as a Nigerian citizen.

The incident drew attention from prominent political figures including Mr Peter Obi, the 2023 presidential candidate of the Labour Party who praised the youth corps member for her courage in voicing her grievances. He emphasized the importance of free speech in a democratic society and condemned any attempts to intimidate citizens exercising this right. Similarly, human rights activist Omoyele Sowore publicly supported Uguamaye, accompanying her to the NYSC Local Government Inspector’s office in Lagos amidst the controversy.

The situation quickly sparked widespread debate on social media regarding the balance between free speech and the responsibilities of NYSC members. While some argue that corps members, as temporary government employees, should adhere to certain restrictions, others insist that freedom of expression is a fundamental right that must be protected, regardless of NYSC status.

The NYSC program, established in 1973, aims to promote national unity by deploying Nigerian graduates to serve in various parts of the country. Over the years, it has faced criticisms related to security concerns and debates over its continued relevance. 52 years later, many Nigerians question the relevance of the scheme amidst many challenges including poor placement, insecurity and poor allowances.

First, They Came For Chioma

Uguamaye’s experience underscores ongoing tensions in Nigeria concerning economic challenges, freedom of speech, and the role of youth in advocating for change. But the real question is, did she lie? Is all well in Nigeria? The situation is akin to an Igbo proverb which says, “you don’t beat a child and also dictate how the child should cry”.

First, it was Chioma Okoli who was hounded by the police and Erisco Foods Ltd over a famous Facebook post reviewing the company’s Nagiko Tomato paste in September 2023 with criminal and civil charges brought against her and now, Ushie.

Our elites, government officials, politicians and law enforcement agencies continue to harass hapless Nigerians simply for voicing their dissatisfaction with the status quo. The Cybercrimes Law has now been weaponised against citizens who make any untoward comments on social media about their conduct.

One is forced to conclude that these government officials have a lot of free time on their hands or are using paid agents to monitor what ordinary citizens are saying on social media out of frustration. The NYSC does not speak for the Presidency and has no right to intimidate anyone over their social media comments on the state of the nation.

The last time I checked, Nigeria is still a democracy and freedom of expression is guaranteed. We cannot allow some unscrupulous politicians and individuals to return us to the military era where freedom of speech was a luxury. Our democracy (albeit imperfect) and freedom are perhaps the only luxuries that Nigerians have, and they must be guarded by all means necessary.

Capital Punishment For TikTok Post

One would think that Uguamaye’s statement was a matter of national security or a terrorist threat that needed a response from senior government officials including Toyin Ajayi, the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity. Ajayi, in his response to the issue on social media had called for capital punishment for the youth corps member. Following the outcry over his post, he quickly retracted by clarifying that his statement did not refer to the death penalty rather, he was calling on the NYSC to apply the stiffest penalty which is expulsion from the scheme.

According to him, “I suggested that flagrant and open abuse and disregard of NYSC by-laws and established protocol should attract the full NYSC disciplinary measures…nothing beyond the established norms and laws is suggested or remotely implied.”

Sadly, even this clarification is way too harsh for a social media post expressing frustration over harsh living conditions. Or does the presidential aide not understand the meaning of capital punishment? If this trend is allowed to continue, we risk descending into the military era where citizens are hounded and dispersed simply for voicing their opinion.

The government should realise that they can’t shut up over 200 million people for the sake of the 1% who control and have captured the state, judiciary and law enforcement. Rather than intimidate citizens for speaking truth to power, the government needs to rethink this missed opportunity to address the concerns of many Nigerians over the state of the nation.

According to this timeless quote by American cultural anthropologist and author, Margaret Mead, “Never underestimate the power of a small group of committed people to change the world. In fact, it is the only thing that ever has.”

What is the Government Afraid Of?

If Uguamaye had made a funny TikTok video or sung the praise of the government endlessly, would she have been handed the same penalties that the presidential aide and the NYSC are advocating? Would she be in violation of the NYSC rules and regulations that are now been popularised?

The saying “the youth are the leaders of tomorrow” has been faulted by many and replaced with “the youth are the leaders of today” because, given the state of the nation, tomorrow is no longer guaranteed. Perhaps that is why Uguamaye voiced out her frustration on social media, a platform which is by far the most widely available medium for young Nigerians to engage with their leaders, other Nigerians and the rest of the world.

One would imagine that it might be a better use of time and state resources if government agencies, officials and their apologists focus on more critical issues like healthcare, education, insecurity and power instead of combing through social media to curtail dissenting voices. The speed with which the NYSC and other government officials have called for stiff penalties against Uguamaye, is to say the least, alarming. How wonderful would it be if the same speed could be used to respond to power outages currently across the country, especially the incessantly collapsing national grid?

Perhaps its safe to conclude that these frequent hounding of ordinary citizens are not isolated events but part of a larger scheme to keep citizens busy and distracted. This timely statement sums it up perfectly, “If you keep a people exhausted and distracted, they won’t organise. If you keep them struggling and divided, they won’t resist. The system isn’t broken, it is working as designed”.