Local government chairmen in Rivers State have vowed to resist any attempt by the state Governor, Chief Nyesom Wike, to dissolve 22 out of the 23 councils in the state.
The council chairmen, who were elected on May 23, 2015, warned that they were ready to begin a regime of resistance to the state government, should it go ahead to dissolve the councils.
Speaking under the aegis of the All Local Government of Nigeria, the council chairmen claimed that the move by the governor to dissolve the local government councils was badly advised.
The Chairman of Degema Local Government Area and ALGON’s Legal Adviser, Mr. Soboye Elai, who spoke on behalf of his colleagues on Thursday in Port Harcourt, said Wike could throw the state into another round of political crisis if he (Wike) went ahead to dissolve the council.
“ALGON shall resist any unconstitutional termination of the councils’ tenure. The consequences of such event occurring at this point in the history of our dear Rivers State are better imagined.
“We are holding the briefing so that the world out there will be well informed about the issues and facts surrounding the sinister plot by the Government of Rivers State, under Chief (Barrister) Nyesom Ezebunwo Wike, to plunge Rivers State into another round of avoidable crisis after the most mindless bloodletting this state had ever known in her 48-year history in the name of struggle to wrest transient political power.
“You will recall, gentlemen, that the Board of the Rivers State Independent Electoral Commission, under the chairmanship of Professor Emeritus Augustine Ahiauzu, was sacked by the governor on Monday, June 8, 2015, after a rather hasty inquisition by the Rivers State House of Assembly adjudged the Commission’s leadership guilty of ‘official misconduct’ on the same day.
“Recall also that the invitation to Golgotha for Prof. Ahiauzu’s board also resulted on the same day in the decapitation of the State Judicial Service Commission.
“While we are yet to come to terms with this legislative/executive adjudication of ‘official misconduct’ against these two executive bodies established under Section 197 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 (as amended), it is the position of ALGON Rivers State (comprising of 23 duly elected chairmen and 319 councillors of the local government councils) that these dissolutions were politically motivated and done in utmost bad faith.”
“These boards were sacked on the altar of expediency to serve narrow and pedestrian partisan interests and not any higher ideals for the good of the larger Rivers State,” Elai said.
He described the dissolution of RSIEC and RSJSC boards as a dress rehearsal to execute an agenda to sack elected local government councils without due recourse to the dictates of the law.
He, however, decried the directive by the state governor to banks and other financial institutions not to deal with the newly inaugurated local government councils.
“Rivers ALGON is not being alarmist. We are putting Rivers people and the nation on red alert that the plot to undermine democratically elected Councils in Rivers State by the Wike Administration, even though in line with his character, will boomerang.”
The aggrieved council chairmen later marched to the state House of Assembly to protest against the alleged move by the state governor to dissolve local government councils in the state.
