Suspension Of Warri Delineation Exercise: A Grave Invitation To Anarchy And Collapse Of Law -

OPEN LETTER OF PROTEST TO THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT, NSA AND THE PEOPLE OF NIGERIA

Date: 28th September 2025
Subject: Suspension of Warri Delineation Exercise: A Grave Invitation to Anarchy and the Collapse of Law

To the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria,
To the National Security Adviser,
To the Chairman of INEC,
And to every Nigerian who still believes in truth, justice and the rule of law:

We are writing in anguish, in fury and in total disbelief. Our hands tremble not from fear but from righteous anger. We are carrying the Constitution in one hand and the blood-stained evidence of injustice in the other. This is not diplomacy. This is not dialogue. This is resistance. The decision by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to suspend the Supreme Court-ordered delineation exercise in Warri Federal Constituency, on the instruction or “escalation” to the Office of the National Security Adviser is not only a constitutional aberration, it is a reckless betrayal of law, a spit in the face of justice and a direct call for anarchy.

Let no one sugarcoat it. This is a coup against the Constitution. Section 287(1) of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria mandates that: “The decisions of the Supreme Court shall be enforced in any part of the Federation by all authorities and persons.” And yet INEC, in open defiance of this supreme law, has frozen a process already legitimized by Nigeria’s highest court. We also remind you of Section 160(1), which says: “In exercising its powers to make regulations for the conduct of elections, INEC shall not be subject to the direction or control of any other authority or person.” Then what is this? What have you done? Who gave the NSA the authority to override a final court judgment? And why is INEC, a constitutionally independent body, bowing to political pressure like a puppet?

Is this the new Nigeria? Where the rule of law is suspended on the altar of political ethnicity? Where court orders are treated like toilet paper? Where the people’s demand for justice is met with executive conspiracy and ethnic silence? You have crossed the red line. What you have done is not governance, it is dictatorship with a democratic mask. What you have done is not security, it is institutional terrorism against the people of Warri.

This entire drama is not about peace and we all know it. It is about preserving the fraudulent grip of a tiny ethnic minority that has monopolized political power through deceitful ward structures and falsified population advantages. This is about the fear of the Ijaw, Urhobo and other majority groups reclaiming their rightful place through legal means. But now that the Supreme Court has spoken and justice has smiled on the oppressed, you shut it all down and call it “suspension”? Shame on you. This is not caution, it is cowardice. This is not peace, it is provocation. This is not administration, it is ethnic authoritarianism.

We reject your suspension. We reject your Continuous Voter Registration using fraudulent ward architecture. We reject every false justification you manufacture to delay justice. You are pushing a peaceful people toward the edge of the cliff and when they fall, history will record who pushed first. We have been shot at during peaceful protests. We have been brutalized for raising our voices. We have been insulted, called tenants on our own ancestral land. We have waited through silence, endured your manipulations, survived your lies. But you dare now suspend the only hope of restoring balance and expect calm?

Let it be clear: we are not afraid of your uniforms. We are not cowed by your silence. We are not broken by your betrayal. If you refuse to implement the Supreme Court judgment, if you refuse to obey the Constitution, then you have no moral authority to govern and no legitimacy to call yourself a democracy.

To the Nigerian Bar Association, to the civil society, to the international community, to every citizen who believes that this country must not fall into flames, the time to speak is now. Because what is happening in Warri is not just a local crisis. It is a national scandal. It is a threat to constitutional order. It is a virus that, if left unchecked, will infect the soul of Nigeria’s democracy. Today it is Warri. Tomorrow it could be you.

To INEC, you must resume the delineation exercise immediately or prepare to answer for the consequences of injustice. To the NSA, withdraw your illegal interference or risk becoming a historical symbol of constitutional collapse. To the President, your silence is complicity. If you allow this to stand, you are no longer presiding over a democracy but an ethnic empire sustained by suppression.

And to our people, the oppressed, the insulted, the wounded, stand firm. Stand united. The truth is with us. History is on our side. And if the law fails us, we have every right to resist with every peaceful means until the law is restored. If you bury justice today, know that it will rise tomorrow, but it will not rise gently.

Signed:

Chief, Tiemopere Joshua
(President)

Chief, Ebikeme T. Godstime
(Secretary)

Concerned Elders of Warri Federal Constituency

Cc:

The Delta State Government

The National Assembly

Chief Justice of Nigeria

International Observers

Media Houses