There were more flaks than praises for President Bola Tinubu, Wednesday, over his intervention in the faceoff between Governor Siminalayi Fubara and his predecessor, Nyesom Wike, and attendant political crisis in Rivers State.
Human rights lawyer, Femi Falana (SAN), said the presidential reinstatement of the 27 cross-carpeting members of the Rivers House of Assembly is alien to the Constitution.
Notwithstanding the reported eight-point resolutions reached Monday night at the meeting between Tinubu and Rivers stakeholders, Falana said the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) is mandatorily required to conduct the by-election once the ex parte order was issued by the Federal High Court.
Noting that the President has no constitutional role to resolve the political crises in Ondo and Rivers states, Falana said while the President may intervene in the crises rocking the states, his intervention must always be grounded in the provisions of the Constitution, though advisory.
Falana said the seats of the cross-carpeting members have been declared vacant by the Speaker known to law. He cited the case of Abegunde v Labour Party (2015) LPELR 24588 (SC), which the Supreme Court held that a legislator, who abandoned the political party that sponsored him and defected to another political party, has automatically lost his seat in parliament.
“The cross-carpeting legislator can only retain his seat if he can prove that the political party that sponsored him is divided into two or more factions. The 27 members of the Rivers Assembly, who decamped from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to All Progressives Congress (APC), have lost their seats because the PDP that sponsored them is not factionalised or divided as stipulated by the Constitution.
“Even if all the cases in the Rivers State High Court and the Federal High Court are withdrawn in line with the advice of the President, it is submitted that all actions taken by the Speaker recognised by the Rivers State High Court, remain valid, including his pronouncement on the vacant seats of the 27 cross-carpeting members of the House.
“In other words, only a court of law is constitutionally competent to set aside the pronouncement of the Speaker, which is anchored on Section 109 of the Constitution. Furthermore, as the Speaker has not been removed by the required number of legislators, a presidential directive cannot remove him.”
Similarly, the Minister of Information in the First Republic, Chief Edwin Clark, has criticised President Tinubu for giving directives to the democratically elected governor of Rivers State for which he lacks the authority.
This is just as the elder statesman confirmed that information at his disposal indicated that the peace agreement purportedly signed by Fubara and Wike was fake.
While addressing journalists in his Abuja home Tuesday, Clark said stakeholders at the meeting confirmed to him that Fubara didn’t sign the pact.
Clark said: “I have got information from Rivers State that the eight-point decision was fake because it was not signed by former governor Peter Odili and Fubara himself, they rejected it. How they came into signing it, nobody knows.
“While Martins Amaewhule, a former Speaker, was present at the meeting, it would have only been equitable and expedient for Edison Ehie, the Speaker as affirmed by constitutional provisions, to be at the meeting if there were sincerity of purpose.
“The eight-point resolutions reached, are the most unconstitutional, absurd and obnoxious resolutions at settling feuding parties that I have ever witnessed in my life.
“However, I am appealing on behalf of our people that our dear son Governor Fubara to stand firm, that the President of Nigeria has no authority over him. The President was elected, he too was elected with various powers. The President is to rule over Nigeria while Fubara is to rule over Rivers.
“We will advise Governor Fubara to disown the purported agreement. He should speak out to Nigerians that he did not sign that agreement. He is not owing anybody any obligation. Wike was an emperor, a dictator for eight years in Rivers. He destroyed houses belonging to his opponents.”
The Ijaw National Congress (INC) in its reaction has said the Minister of Federal Capital Territory, Wike, obviously ambushed Governor Fubara with the conditions of the peace accord signed on Monday.
The apex Ijaw ethnic group through its spokesman, Ezenobi Oyakemeaagbegha, pointed out that there was no fair representation at the meeting, lamenting that it was one-sided.
He said the Ijaw people are downtrodden, soft, and meek, but if Fubara cannot stand to resist such ill-conceived actions against him, the people of Ijaw will stand together to resist it.
Also, Rivers State Elders and Leaders Forum have stated that it would not comment on the truce reached in Abuja over the crisis in the state until the governor addresses the people of the state.
Anabs Sara-Igbe, a member of the forum, in Port Harcourt, said the people of the state are waiting on Fubara to address them so that they would know what transpired in Abuja .
He said: “At the moment, we want the governor to address Rivers people, so we can know what transpired in Abuja, only then we will know the line of action to take and what to say.”
A Port Harcourt-based constitutional lawyer and human rights advocate, Festus Ogwuche, has decried the truce reached in Abuja as a coup d’état against governor Fubara and the people of the state.
Ogwuche said the document and the agreement reached were against any known law and the Constitution of the nation, adding that it was treason for a governor to subject himself to another authority apart from the people that voted him in.
“The governor of a state cannot be subservient to any other authority apart from the one given by the Constitution and authority of the people. I wonder if the governor had the consent and authority of the people to endorse such a document. If he did sign the document, it means that the government of Rivers State has been taken over in a manner not contemplated by the constitution.
“That panders to the fact of treason; treasonable felony when you run any administration outside the provision of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. There could be some understanding between politicians, but it is not what you put down in black and white as an instrument of governance.”
Meanwhile, the PDP has insisted that INEC must conduct fresh election in Rivers to fill the vacancies created by the defection of 25 members of the state’s Assembly.
Addressing a press conference on Tuesday, acting National Chairman of the PDP, Umar Damagum, said the party would not relent on its efforts to get those members out of the House of Assembly since they have defected.
At the end of its emergency National Working Committee (NWC) meeting on the political developments in Rivers, Damagum said: “By virtue of Section 109 (1)(g) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (as amended) the lawmakers vacated and lost their seats by reason of defection from the PDP, the platform upon which they were elected into the House of Assembly.
“Our party insists that having now vacated and lost their seats, the only option available for the former lawmakers, if they wish to return to the House of Assembly, is to seek fresh nomination and re-election on the platform of any political party of their choice in line with the provisions of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (as amended) and the Electoral Act, 2022.
“For the avoidance of doubt, there is no division in the PDP at the national or any other level for that matter to justify the defection of the 25 former members of the Assembly. They therefore vacated their seats for reasons best known to them and cannot return to the House of Assembly without passing through a fresh electoral process in accordance with the provisions of the 1999 Constitution (as amended) and the Electoral Act, 2022.”
“For emphasis, Section 84 (15) of the Electoral Act, 2022 is clear in providing that no court has power to stop INEC from conducting elections wherever and whenever a vacancy occurs in any electoral constituency,” he stated.
The party chair further added that PDP would take disciplinary measures against Wike and other members of the party who worked against PDP at the appropriate time.
In his first public outing after the meeting with the President, Fubara has said his administration will pay the necessary sacrifices that could give peace a chance in the state and foster development, adding that there was no price that will be too big to pay to ensure that peace prevails.
The governor gave the assurance at the third convocation and 6th Founders Day ceremonies of the PAMO University of Medical Sciences in Iriebe Town, Obio-Akpor Local Government Area, yesterday, an institution owned by former governor, Peter Odili and his wife, Mary.
The governor assured that he is prepared and will continue to pay the necessary price that will guarantee peace.
. Additional reports by Kenneth Ibinabo