By John Odhe, YENAGOA
The Bayelsa State House of Assembly and the Executive Chairman of Sagbama Local Government Council of the State, Mrs. Alice Tangi Allen are on collusion course following alleged plot to oust the SALGA boss over alleged misconduct.
The Bayelsa State legislature is said to have allegedly defied a subsisting court order and summoned the council boss to appear before it unfailingly on Tuesday, August 18.
We gathered that Justice D.E. Adokeme, sitting as vacation judge of the Yenagoa Judicial Division of the Bayelsa High Court, had on August 10, 2026, in an ex parte motion brought before him by Allen, ordered that all parties “maintain the status quo, pending the hearing and determination of the motion on notice filed contemporaneously with this application”.
The order was made in connection to Allen’s suit against the Government of Bayelsa State, the Speaker of the Bayelsa State House of Assembly, the Sagbama Legislative Council, the Leader of the Council and the Attorney-General of Bayelsa, all of whom were listed as 1st – 6th defendants.
While the case is billed for expedited hearing on August 20, 2026, the State assembly has mandated the embattled SALGA chairman to appear before it on August 18, 2026 at the assembly complex in Yenagoa.
The chairman is being accused, amongst other things, to have spent some council funds without proper approvals and was yet to send in her budget for the year.
There is also the allegation that she used council money to fund political activities.
The SALGA boss, who is a political ally of the founder of the Nigerian Democratic Congress (NDC), Senator Seriake Dickson, is the only council chairman is the State who has not defected from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) platform under which she was elected.
Allen’s lawyer, Micheal Jonathan Numa, SAN, in a letter to the Bayelsa State assembly, and served on all six defendants, said that his client cannot honour the House’s summon because it would amount to disobedience of the court order.
He alleged that the house’s summon had already amounted to a defiance of that same order.
Numa’s letter, we learnt, was served on the assembly on August 17, and copied to the State’s Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice with a certified true copy of the order of the High Court of Bayelsa State made on 10 August 2026.
Other court documents attached to the letter included writ of summons, and accompanying originating processes.
Part of Numa’s letter read, “We therefore respectfully urge the Honourable House to be pleased to stand down the invitation of 18 August 2026 and to stay further steps on this subject matter pending the hearing and determination of the Motion on Notice fixed for 20 August 2026 and thereafter, the substantive suit.
“Our client undertakes without reservation to appear before the Honourable House upon being duly invited, once the court has pronounced on the pending applications, and she remains willing at anytime to attend on any matter falling outside the subject matter of the suit”.
Allen is reportedly outside Bayelsa State on medical reasons.
