How Court Stopped Ex-LG Chairmen From Returning To Rivers Councils
As the Rivers State Independent Electoral Commission gets ready to conduct a fresh election for the 23 local governments in the state, it has become clear that the local government chairmen whose tenure expired in June last year, but who had vowed to return to office following the recent Supreme Court judgement, could not return to office having realised that the law which extended their tenure by six months had been annulled by a court in the state.
Some of the local government chairmen had threatened that following last week’s removal of local government chairmen who assumed office about four months ago by the apex court, they would go back to resume as council chairmen.
The likes of Chidi Llyod of Emohua Local Government and Samuel Nwanosike of Ikwerre Local Government believed that since the Supreme Court had recognised the Martins Amaewhule House of Assembly as the authentic Assembly, the law they passed extending their tenure subsisted.
Apparently, they had not remembered that a state high court had annulled the said law as it was against the 1999 constitution and also went contrary to the local government law 2018 which fixed their tenure at three years.
In giving the judgement, Mr Justice D.G. Kio had ruled that as long as the law was inconsistent with the constitution, it was null and void and of no effect.
The judgment came as a result of a suit filed by Enyiada Cookey-Gam and six others and at the heat of the clamour by the former council chairmen to regain their seats after their tenure had expired.
This is just as the SIEC has invited all stakeholders, including political parties and security operatives, to a meeting on Wednesday as part of preparations for the conduct of a fresh local government election.
It is expected that guidelines for the conduct of the election will be issued will be made public by RSIEC after the meeting, according to the notice by the commission on Tuesday.
