By Ise-Oluwa Ige

In this report, Vanguard’s Law & Human Rights traces the background facts surrounding the ongoing political crisis in Rivers State, identifies the political cum legal measures taken so far to address the situation with a survey of top lawyers on the constitutionality of President Bola Tinubu’s recent intervention at a time several trial courts are seized of the facts of the case.

By a state-wide broadcast, Rivers State Governor, Siminalayi Fubara, last Monday declared his determination to implement an eight-point resolution brokered by President Bola Tinubu to resolve the lingering crisis between him and his predecessor, Nyesom Wike.

The crisis which started like a child play about two months ago between the two actors had shattered the peace in the state and made mockery of constitutional democracy in the oil-rich state.

Although the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, on whose back Fubara rode to Rivers State Government House warned against the implementation of the controversial peace pact, the governor on Christmas day vowed to go ahead with it, having realised that its execution would ensure lasting peace in the state. President Tinubu at a meeting with governors in Lagos on Tuesday applauded Governor Fubara for running with the resolution.

But before the political solution was provided by President Tinubu, not less than four separate lawsuits had been instituted before different courts on the issue while another class action suit was filed by five senior citizens to interrogate the constitutionality of Tinubu’s political solution.

How it all started

By a landslide victory, Fubara, the anointed candidate of Wike, won the last gubernatorial election which held in Rivers state on March 18, 2023, with 302,614 votes to beat the All Progressives Congress, APC, governorship candidate, Pastor Tonye Cole, who came second with 95,274 votes and others. 

Wike who was elated by the emergence of his candidate formally handed over the baton of governance in the state to Fubara on May 29, 2023. Although Wike was appointed a Federal minister, he still retained more than a passive interest in his state.

Indeed, like a headmaster, Wike was overseeing Fubara in the running of the state as he was instrumental in the appointment of most of the governor’s aides, including commissioners and the Chief Security Officer which his godson was not happy with.

Notwithstanding, both of them (Wike and Fubara) were at peace with each other until sometime in October when crisis started brewing over the purported overbearing influence of the godfather on the godson.

Although the details of the issues between them were not immediately clear, the disagreement between the two grew so bad that it created tension and division in the state with an attempt by state lawmakers to impeach the sitting state governor.

The crisis

But four of the 32 state lawmakers loyal to Governor Fubara, made frantic efforts to frustrate the process. As soon as it became apparent that the state lawmakers were after Fubara’s job, the state legislature also began to suffer some attacks which some pundits traced to the executive ostensibly to frustrate the impeachment process against the governor. For instance, on October 29, 2023, some arsonists bombed the House of Assembly Complex, destroying a section of the complex.

Wike who was resident in Abuja fingered Fubara as the mastermind of the incident, saying he took the step after learning about the impeachment attempt against him.

Less than 24 hours after the unknown arsonists set the state House of Assembly ablaze, the lawmakers perceived as the loyalists to Wike held a sitting in a Committee Room on October 30, 2023, and removed the Assembly leader, Edison Ehie, one of the four lawmakers backing Fubara and who had in the past, opposed and blocked avenues to impeach the governor.

Ehie’s sin, according to the Rivers State House of Assembly Speaker, Martins Amaewhule, was that he was not attending the assembly’s sittings regularly.

At a time when plots to remove the governor at all costs became thicker, President Tinubu intervened in the crisis bringing about a graveyard peace in the state.

However, the details of the resolution at the peace meeting between Tinubu and the warring parties in Rivers State were not made public.

But barely a month after Tinubu’s intervention, the fragile peace in the state suffered a major setback following the purported inability of Governor Fubara to meet what a source described as unfulfillable demands by ex-Governor Wike.

Specifically, 27 of the 32 lawmakers in the state House of Assembly decamped from the PDP to APC, preparatory to impeaching the governor. 

The defected lawmakers sat under tight security at the entrance of the Assembly complex along Moscow Road in Port Harcourt to take the decision, citing division within the PDP as the primary reason for defecting to the APC.

But the decision by the majority of the state lawmakers to decamp was roundly condemned on the account that the division envisaged by the constitution in the political party was non-existent. 

Following the decampment, Ehi with three other lawmakers in the state House of Assembly also sat and elected Ehie as the new Speaker.

The four-member House of Assembly also got an order of the state High Court sitting in Port-Harcourt stopping the 27 other lawmakers from parading themselves as members of the state’s House of   Assembly and empowering them to carry out the state legislative business without any interference.

Indeed, the four-member House of Assembly passed the state budget within 48 hours.

While the political gymnastics were ongoing, the two factions of the state House of Assembly were meeting at different locations in the state, with those in the majority whose seats had been declared vacant strategizing on how to remove the governor at all costs.

That was the situation when as early as 6 am on December 13, 2023, agents of Rivers Government moved about five excavators to the State House of Assembly Complex in Port-Harcourt and demolished it under the guise that the exercise was part of efforts to carry out renovation works at the facility following the bombing of a section of the complex in October.

Causes of the crisis

Although the causes of the political crisis are not in the public domain, a lawyer and Pan-Africanist, Chetam Thierry Nwala, alleged on national TV that the political unrest in the state was a result of unfulfillable demands by Wike.

Nwala specifically alleged that the refusal of Governor Fubara to remit 25 percent of the State’s allocation to Wike, his immediate predecessor, caused the face-off.

He claimed that Wike had demanded that 25 percent of all allocations to Rivers State should be given to him but that the governor conceded only 10% which the ex-governor did not like.

Nwala also claimed that Wike demanded N2 billion from the N5 billion recently disbursed by the Federal Government to the states as part of palliatives to cushion the effect of the fuel subsidy removal.

It is a lie—Wike

But Wike had dismissed the allegations by Nwala as untrue, saying his rift with Governor Fubara was purely political.

Wike specifically accused Governor Fubara of hobnobbing with some of their political opponents calculated to collapse his political structure and weaken his political relevance in the state which he said he was willing to resist with all he has.

It is a father and son problem—Fubara

Fubara admitted that there were issues with his godfather but trivialized the crisis tearing the state apart describing it as a mere “father and son’ issue, adding “If we have an internal issue, it will be resolved, and everything will go back to normal.

“There is nothing wrong if a father and a son have a problem if there is any problem, but I don’t think there is anything; whatever it is, we will resolve the issue.”

Although he fought his godfather with conscience, the support he received from within and without the state encouraged him to dare Wike.

PDP demands fresh election to fill seats of 25 lawmakers

In the meantime, the PDP national leadership wrote a letter to the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, demanding fresh elections in the state to replace the defected 27 lawmakers in the state.

The party said the seats of the defected lawmakers had become vacant, by virtue of the provisions of Section 109 (1) (g) of the 1999 Constitution.

Defected 27 lawmakers get court order against INEC

But before INEC could act, the lawmakers approached the Federal High Court sitting in Abuja and secured an order stopping the electoral umpire from conducting by-elections to replace them.

In the ruling delivered on December 15, Justice Donatus Okorowo said the interim order would remain pending the determination of the substantive case.

The implication of the orders from the Rivers State High Court and the Abuja Federal High Court is that both factions of the lawmakers in the state are valid to perform legislative functions in the state, a situation not envisaged by the nation’s constitution.

Tinubu wades in

Before the matter would degenerate further, President Tinubu, on December 18, 2023, held another peace meeting with Rivers State stakeholders at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, to resolve the political crisis.

At the meeting were Governor Fubara, Wike, a former governor of the state, Peter Odili, Vice President Kashim Shettima, and the Rivers State deputy governor, Ngozi Odu. Others were Nuhu Ribadu, the National Security Adviser; PDP acting chairman in the state, Aaron Chukwuemeka; embattled Speaker of the House of Assembly, Martin Amaewhule; and chairman of the APC in the state.

The meeting reached an eight-point peace agreement including that all matters instituted in the courts by the Governor of Rivers State, Fubara, and his team, in respect of the political crisis in Rivers State, shall be withdrawn immediately, all impeachment proceedings initiated against the Governor of Rivers State by the Rivers State House of Assembly should be dropped immediately, the leadership of the Rivers State House of Assembly as led by the Martin Amaewhule shall be recognised alongside the 27 members who resigned from the PDP while the remunerations and benefits of all members of the Rivers State House of Assembly and their staff must be reinstated immediately.

Others were that the Governor of Rivers State shall henceforth not interfere with the full funding of the Rivers State House of Assembly, the Rivers State House of Assembly shall choose where they want to sit and conduct their legislative business without interference and/or hindrance from the Executive arm of government, the Governor of Rivers State, Sir Fubara, shall re-present the state budget to a properly constituted Rivers State House of Assembly, the names of all commissioners in the Rivers State Executive Council who resigned their appointments because of the political crisis in the state should be resubmitted to the House of Assembly for approval and that there should not be a caretaker committee for the local governments in Rivers State as the dissolution of the Local Government administration is null and void and shall not be recognized.