Category: Politics

The macabre dance in Rivers State reached a Crescendo:

It seems to me that the political crisis in the Rivers State branch of the Peoples Democratic Party between Governor Simi Fubara and former Governor, Honourable Nyesom Wike,has smothered, and the consequent eruption will possibly led to collapse of the executive and legislative branches of the Rivers State government.

Already, the polarization between in the PDP has fragmented and factionalized the Rivers State House of Assembly into two antagonistic camps.

27 members of the Rivers State House of Assembly belonged to Nyesome Wike’s camp and two days ago in a darinh and deft politcal manoeuvring defected from the PDP and joined the APC.

The Pro-Simi Fubara’s camp in the Rivers State House of Assembly is made up of only 4 members.

On 13 December 2023, the purportedly to be a vacant.
The seats of the 27 members that defected from PDP to APC were declared vacant by the four members Pro-Sim Fubara.

However,pundits wondered how four members could take such a weighty decision when membership of the Rivers State House of Assembly is 31.

The constitution says that the quorum of a State of Assembly is one-third of its membership.

Therefore ,one-third of 31 members of the Rivers State House of Asssembly are 11 members.

On 14 December 2023, the four members of the Pro-Sim Fubara’s camp purportedly convened and passed the budget for 2023/2024 financial year.

The budget is a law.
When a budget is passed
It is otherwise known as the Appropriation.

Section 121 (1) of the Constitution makes it mandatory for the Governor to cause to be prepared and laid before the House of Assembly at any time before the commencement of each financial year estimates of the revenues and expenditure of the State for the next following financial year.

Therefore, the pertinent question is:
Is it constitutional for only four members of a State House of Assembly to pass a law?
Can a budget passed by 4 out of 31 members Rivers State House of Assembly (Appropriation law) survive a constitutional scrutiny for the passage of a bill into law as laid down by section 100 (1)& (2) of the Constitution?

I certainly have my doubt.
The affliction that has befallen the Rivers State has spread to the executive branch of government.

On 14 December 2023, typically, of the scene in a movie, almost one-third of the members of the Rivers State Executive Council resigned their membership.

It seemed to me that those who resigned from the Rivers Executive Council belonged to the Nyesom Wike’s group.

Undoubtedly, there is a political cum constitutional crisis in Rivers State.
This is the truth of the matter.
It will take a sustained legal intervention to entangle and wriggle out of all the legal conundrums and labyrinths that crisis has caused.

What has happened in Rivers State is reminiscing what happened in the old Western Region of Nigeria in 1962 when a crisis in the Action Group Party was the governing party triggered a constitutional crisis and politcal conflagration that led the Federal government to declare a state of emergency in the Western Region.

The chicken has come home to roost!!
Is history repeating itself?

@ Okoi Obono-Obla

Disclaimer: The opinion expressed in this article is strictly that of the author, Okoi Obono-Obla and does not represent TheLumineNews or its agent.

 

I always advised social media denizens or even people who don’t know the mechanics and intricacies of the law not to comment on it. issues concerning judgments of courts or law or election tribunals.

But the age of techno apologies to Wole Soyinka has made it possible for everybody to become a lawyer and attempt to interpret judgments of courts even without reading them to digest the reasoning of the judges; to evaluate how they assess the evidence adduced by both parties during trial.

After evaluating the evidence he put it into the mythical scale of justice he holds in his right to weight, and you see which side the scale tilts.

After that, the judge will apply the law to those facts before he delivers his judgment.

When you read the judgment of the tribunal and that of the court of Appeal and grasp it well you will see the predilection of politicians to be so desperate for power that most times they disregard rules, regulations and the law with recklessly abandoning all decency, all in a frenzied bid to grab power by all means.

Then when they reach the cul de sac they expect judges to close their eyes to their murder of the law and proceed to use sentiments to wriggle them out.

But judges are blind to public opinion sentiment and emotional outbursts of the social media mobbers.

Governor Kabir Yusuf was a member of the PDP and a governorship aspirant in the party. Kano State.

When it dawned on him that he would not grab the party ticket he recklessly and quickly made a volte-face and hurriedly joined the NNPP and grabbed its ticket.
He didn’t know that APC political intelligence was scooping him to gather hard evidence against him.

By the time Governor Yusuf was purportedly given a ticket by NNPP; the period prescribed by the Electoral Act for political parties to submit the list of their candidates to INEC had closed.

What is the implication of all this?

Simple; at the time Governor Kabir Yusuf purportedly joined NNPP and filed his nomination under its platform, he was not a member of the party.

Membership in a political party is a must for anybody who wants to be a governor of a State and is indeed a fundamental constitutional requirement he must fulfil.

Section 177 (1)(c) of the constitution makes it obligatory for someone to be a member of a political party that wants to sponsor his election.

This is the provision of the constitution that Governor Kabir Yusuf NNPP brazenly and with ignominy breached which the Court of Appeal found against him.

Governor Yusuf and NNPP had a bad case.
Even at the Tribunal, they called one witness. This witness strangely told the Tribunal that it should use all the documents rendered by INEC to decide the case!!

The documents tendered by INEC demonstrated that the results sheets were not stamped and signed by presiding officers at more than 16,000 polling stations.

That will amount to a sheer waste of precious judicial time to appeal this judgment to the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court is an appellate court and ordinarily would not substitute its findings with those of the trial court and intermediate appellate court save in rare cases.

The Supreme Court will not disregard the findings made by a trial court that hears the case, or observe the demeanour of the witnesses during cross-examination save in exceptional circumstances.

I have not seen any exceptional. circumstances that will cause the Supreme Court to do otherwise in the case of Governor Abba Kabir Yusuf & NNPP versus INEC & APC!
Governor Kabir Yusuf and NNPP should just throw in the towel, period.

@ Okoi Obono-Obla

Disclaimer: The opinion expressed in this article is strictly that of the author, Okoi Obono-Obla and does not represent TheLumineNews or its agent.