A group of 60 federal lawmakers on Wednesday said the 27 lawmakers of the Rivers State House of Assembly whose seats were declared vacant in December 2023 following their defection to the All Progressives Congress from the Peoples Democratic Party, lack the powers to serve Governor Siminalayi Fubara impeachment notice.
In a telephone interview with PUNCH Online on Wednesday night, the spokesman for the group and member representing Ideato South/North Federal Constituency, Ikenga Ugochinyere, slammed the lawmakers for calling for Fubara’s impeachment.
“The call for the impeachment of the governor is a call to anarchy that will lead to the collapse of democracy if the President doesn’t call them to order.
“Unless there is a supreme order of the court, these 27 lawmakers have lost their seats. We cannot allow this absurdity because the APC Minister is working with the president and you now want to overthrow a legitimate Governor.
“The President needs to intervene because it is issues like these that led to the collapse of democracy in the 70s and 80s. If they are popular, they should contest fresh elections,” he said.
According to the G-60 lawmakers, the purported veto of the powers of the governor by the group of 27 persons “Parading themselves as Rivers State lawmakers” was nothing but legislative rascality taken too far.
The 60 federal lawmakers stated this in a formal reaction to the alleged overriding of the assent of Governor Fubara to pass the Rivers State Public Procurement (Amendment) Bill 2024.
Fubara has been involved in a fierce political battle with the lawmakers since falling out with his political godfather and Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Mr Nyesom Wike.
In a statement signed by the spokesman for the group, Ugochinyere, the group described the veto as null and void.
Ugochinyere said, “These clowns as far as we are concerned, are still moving about freely parading themselves because of Governor Fubara’s mercy and largely in obedience to the peace accord brokered by President Bola Tinubu to end the political crisis in Rivers tate. However, while the Governor has stuck to the accord, his predecessor and Federal Capital Territory Minister, Nyesom Wike has not, with what his loyalists are doing.
“One of such evidence is the purported veto of Rivers procurement law which is an unenforceable legislative madness by impostors who are scared of the impact of Fubara’s infrastructure revolution.
“If not, how can people worth calling lawmakers even think that mobilisation fee of not more than 20 per cent of any contract sum is enough for suppliers or contractors to move to the site or provide goods and services in the present economic quagmire masterminded by their allies in the federal government?
“It is also on notice that these persons who sit in some hotel rooms in Abuja or anywhere their paymasters take them to, make such pronouncements, have lost the status of lawmakers ever since they dumped the party, the PDP which was a vehicle that brought them to power and joined APC.”
He added that their action “Violated Section 109 (1) (g) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (as amended) which states that a member of a House of Assembly shall vacate his seat in the House if being a person whose election to the House of Assembly was sponsored by a political party, he becomes a member of another political party before the expiration of the period for which that House was elected.
“To this end, these people are not lawmakers and the Independent National Electoral Commission should rise to the occasion and conduct elections to fill those vacant seats and save Rivers State and Nigeria this continuous illegality that the embarrassment that non-existing lawmakers are causing too often.”
“We reiterate that the so-called veto will not be enforced, it is madness taken too far by crowns whose existence under the banner they claim is made possible by the mercy of Governor Fubara who chooses to respect the President and promote peace which to him is sin qua non for the development he is committed to bringing to Rivers State.”
