…Dismisses Gov Fubara’s appeal
Stephen Ukandu, Umuahia
The Court of Appeal sitting in Abuja, Thursday, affirmed Hon. Martin Amaewhule as the authentic Speaker of the Rivers State Assembly.
The three-member panel, in a unanimous decision also validated the Amaewhule-led members of the Assembly as bonafide lawmakers for the state.
Governor Siminalayi Fubara and his enstranged political godfather and Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, Mr Nyesom Wike, have been engrossed in a battle over the control of the soul of Rivers State.
The panel dismissed an appeal brought before it by Governor Fubara, and upheld a judgement the Federal High Court delivered on January 22, which nullified the 2024 budget of Rivers State on the premise that it was not presented before members of the State Assembly that were known to the law.
According to the appellate court, “Fubara, shot himself on the foot when he voluntarily withdrew a counter-affidavit he filed to challenge a legal action the Amaewhule-led lawmakers instituted to be recognised as valid members of the Rivers State House of Assembly.”
The court further held that Gov. Fubara’s decision to present the 2024 Rivers State Appropriation Bill to only four out of 31 members of the Assembly, amounted to a gross violation of section 91 of the 1999 Constitution, as amended.
Justice James Omotosho of the High court held that the budget was invalid as it was not properly presented before the Rivers State House of Assembly as required by the law.
He held that Governor Fubara acted like a tyrant when he demolished the Rivers State Assembly complex and withheld funds standing to the credit of the legislative house.
The court also described as unconstitutional, the redeployment of the Clerk and Deputy Clerk of the Rivers State Assembly by Governor Fubara.
It also nullified all actions the Rivers Assembly took without the participation of the Amaewhule-led members of the House, among which included the presentation of the state appropriation bill.
The court went further to issue an order of injunction, restraining Governor Fubara from impeding or frustrating the operations of the Assembly under Amaewhule’s leadership as its speaker.
It ordered Gov. Fubara to release all funds standing to the credit of the Rivers State House of Assembly.
Upholding the verdict of the lower court, the appellate court held that Fubara conceded to the Amaewhule-led lawmakers when he withdrew all the processes he filed against their suit.
“A party must be consistent in the presentation of its case. A party cannot approbate and reprobate or blow hot and cold at the same time,” the appellate court held.
It held that the orders of the trial court were appropriate given the circumstance of the case, saying the appeal Fubara filed before it amounted to an academic exercise.
Accordingly, it ordered Fubara to pay a cost of N500,000 to each of the Respondents in the appeal marked: CA/ABJ/CV/133/2024.
Recall that while 26 lawmakers are loyal to Wike, four legislators led by Hon Edison Ehie, are loyal to Gov. Fubara.
Fubara had presented the N800billion 2024 budget of the state before the Ehie-led four member Assembly, an action that was faulted by Amaewhule and his colleagues.
Meanwhile, the Ehie-led faction went further to declare the seats of the Amaewhule-led pro-Wike lawmakers vacant for defecting to the All Progressives Congress, APC, from the Peoples Democratic Party, a platform through which they came to power.
The development led to the lingering legal fireworks and brewing political crisis rocking the oil-rich state.
The factional Speaker, Ehie, who had approached the court and was joined as an interested party in the suit, subsequently withdrew all the processes he filed before the court and equally rescinded both his seat and his membership of the Assembly.
