- Chief Judge Barred, Unaware Of Speaker’s Letter
It is becoming clear, that members of the Rivers State House of Assembly may have insisted on the impeachment of the governor, Sim Fubara and his deputy, Ngozi Odu, to enable the FCT minister, Nyesom Wike, believed to be their godfather, to negotiate from the point of strength when the president, Bola Tinubu returns to Nigeria this weekend, even as a high court in the state has stopped further processes on the impeachment.
Sources confided in TNN on Friday that the decision of four of the lawmakers to pull out of the impeachment agenda during the week, was taken because Wike was not comfortable with the stance of the APC leadership against the FCT minister.
This was further compounded by the position of Mr. Ibrahim Ya’u Darazo, Special Adviser to the President on Political and Intergovernmental Affairs, who had warned Wike against further overheating the polity in Rivers State, during a press briefing in Abuja.
The legislators were said to have been given the go-ahead to announce that they were pulling out of the impeachment plot as a way of testing the governor’s reaction, and to also give Wike and his men sometime to restrategise, while also monitoring the president’s body language and ahead of the president’s envisaged return to Nigeria.
On Friday, Minority Leader, Sylvanus Nwankwo; Peter Abbey (Degema Constituency); Barile Nwakoh (Khana Constituency I); and Emilia Amadi (Obio/Akpor Constituency II), in what has been suspected to be a comedy script, announced that they had perceived that Fubara was not willing to change his ways, and that they had rescinded their decision to abandon the impeachment agenda.
“During the pendency of this appeal, we observed that the governor and the deputy governor deployed their media aides to consistently attack the Rivers State House of Assembly instead of seeking the political solution we proposed. It is on this basis that we have resolved that the impeachment proceedings should continue, Nwankwo had said.”
More of the lawmakers were to appear in front of the microphone to make same declaration, that they were committed to the impeachment. Some of them were visbly jittery and unorganised and could barely speak flawless English language though.
Even those who read prepared texts still found it difficult to read. They looked more like people who were coerced to appear before the cameras.
Sources said with the new move, Wike and his men expect that as soon as Tinubu arrives Nigeria, the president would call for a meeting where they hope to extract some commitments from him, especially on their return ticket to the Assembly, ahead of the 2027 election.
Meanwhile, it has emerged that the state chief judge, Mr Justice Chibuzor-Amadi has not received the letter ordering him to set up an investigative panel, as at Friday.
TNN learnt that the Assembly was yet to officially establish any contact with the chief judge, who, as at Friday, was not in Port Harcourt.
A source confided in TNN that the chief judge has not been in Port Harcourt and had not been informed by the Assembly on the matter.
It was also confirmed that the governor was yet to be served with the notice of impeachment, about seven days after the Assembly made it public.
