The Rivers State Government on Tuesday dismissed a call on the state House of Assembly by the Caretaker Committee of the All Progressives Congress in the state to commence impeachment proceedings against Governor Siminlayi Fubara.
The state Commissioner for Information and Communications, Joseph Johnson, who said this in an interview with The PUNCH in Port Harcourt, said the governor would not allow anybody to throw the state into anarchy.
Also, the leader of the Pan Niger Delta Forum, Chief Edwin Clark and other prominent individuals in the region warned the lawmakers against causing anarchy in the state.
The APC Caretaker Committee Chairman in the state, Chief Tony Okocha, had earlier on Tuesday called on the 27 members of the state House of Assembly loyal to the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Nyesom Wike, to immediately commence an impeachment process against Fubara
Okocha warned that failure of the lawmakers to heed the directive would attract severe sanctions in line with relevant sections of the party’s constitution.
The crisis between Fubara and his godfather, Wike, started last year when the Assembly dominated by Wike’s loyalists attempted to impeach the governor.
The two camps later signed a peace pact following the intervention of President Bola Tinubu. But they had since resumed hostilities as they disagreed on the peace pact.
The Assembly had at least overridden the governor by passing at least two bills that he withheld assent.
On Monday, Fubara dismissed the Assembly as an illegal body that did not exist.
Also, he insisted that the eight-point peace agreement brokered by the President was a mere political solution to a problem and not a constitutional issue.
APC knocks Fubara
But on Tuesday, the APC Caretaker Committee Chairman in the state, Okocha, said the governor did not have the powers to declare the lawmakers as illegal.
He also wondered when the governor realised that the peace deal which he signed before Tinubu in Abuja was unconstitutional.
He added that aside from refusing to implement all the agreements, he had been making scathing remarks on the President’s genuine intervention to resolve the crisis that rocked the state.
The state APC CTC Chairman stated, “You know the history of politics. You know the constitution of Nigeria. The governor says the Assembly members do not exist, that whatever thing they are doing is because he allows them.
“In other words, he has re-written the books. Elementary politics taught us the three organs of government and their roles and goes further to talk about the separation of powers and checks and balances.
“Now what the governor was implying is that he is ruling Rivers State without laws. That Rivers State runs an executive arm and judiciary. So what that implies is simply absurdity. You can now see the tendencies of a dictator.
“As an opposition party in Rivers State, we will not keep quiet. We will shout. Regrettably, the governor has taken us to this point and we will not take it.
“What section of the constitution empowers the governor to declare the Assembly non-existent? The role of the governor is proclamation of the Assembly which is done once in four years. The constitution doesn’t allow him for the quarterly proclamation of the Assembly.
“He (Fubara) dissolved the House and proclaimed the Assembly at the end of the tenure of the Assembly. Mind you the Assembly we are talking about is a representative of the people. , The members were duly elected. They are not his appointees.
“So where did the governor derive his powers to say that the Assembly is non-existent? Meanwhile, records are there about the correspondence between the governor and the Assembly wherein he addressed Martin Amaewhule as the Speaker of the Rivers State House of Assembly when the nine commissioners resigned. He wrote to the House for them to be screened and were consequently reassigned their portfolios.
“We want this to be on record as the chairman of the APC in Rivers State, as the representative of Mr President, we won’t sit here to see the governor declare on his own as if he is in court.
“He has become Daniel, who is sitting in judgment to declare the Assembly members’ seat vacant. To that extent in consultation with my party, we have directed and we are directing the Assembly members as APC members who are in the Assembly to immediately commence the impeachment of Governor Siminalayi Fubara.
“We have directed members of the Rivers State House of Assembly to commence the impeachment process of a comatose government. The governor’s head has become bigger than his pillow. He does not respect the law.’’
But in a swift reaction, the state Commissioner for Information and Communications, Joseph Johnson, said the position of the governor had not changed.
He stated, “By jurisprudence, the 27 lawmakers lost their seats on the day they defected to another party. That is what the law says.
“The Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Section 109, 1g clearly states it. It is incontrovertible. So for anybody to think that they can start a process, the law says they cannot put something on nothing.
“There is nothing at all to even put on something. The House of Assembly does not exist. They are non-existent. The governor said yesterday that they did not exist. Out of his magnanimity, he allowed them, giving them a floater to see if they could come to reality. “But it does appear that they don’t understand what was done for them. So if they want to start an impeachment process, they do not have the legal teeth to even do it. They can only bark, but they can’t bite.”
Efforts to reach the spokesman for the House of Assembly, Enemi George, proved abortive as he neither picked up several calls put across to his telephone nor responded to text and WhatsApp messages sent to him as of the time of filing this report on Tuesday night.
The same goes for the House Leader, Major Jack, who neither answered calls nor replied to messages sent to him.
But when contacted, the Deputy Speaker, Dumle Maol, said there was nothing wrong with Okocha’s call.
He however said, “That is the position of the party. That is his (Okocha) opinion. He is the leader of the party in the state and there is nothing wrong with that.
“The party has the power to invoke relevant sections of the constitution. But I don’t hold brief. I am not the spokesman. “
