• APP: cases might end at Supreme Court
Rivers State House of Assembly Speaker Martins Amaewhule has accused Governor Siminialayi Fubara of violating the Constitution and the rule of law.
Amaewhule, who was reacting to a Federal High Court judgment that dismissed the case filed by the All Peoples Party (APP) seeking to remove him and 26 others lawmakers as an abuse of court process, said he was convinced Fubara would not obey the judgment.
The Speaker noted that the governor had serially disobeyed all judgments and orders from courts of competent jurisdiction in the desperation to remove them from office.
He said: “We listened to the judge and he made references to previous judgments and court orders that the governor of Rivers has failed to respect. I know he will also not respect this one.
“He has sworn not to respect the Constitution of Nigeria. Fubara has sworn not to respect judgments of the court, even the Supreme Court, and he has decided to govern Rivers outside every provision of the law. But we should rest assured that all of us will continue to push for our democracy. We will remain undeterred.”
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The Speaker said the judgment had shown that his office was not vacant and that he remained the leader of the authentic House of Assembly.
He said the court had also dismissed the claim that he and fellow lawmakers defected from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to their All Progressives Congress (APC).
Amaewhule said: “We are commending the judiciary. The judge was very clear. All that we heard is pleasing to our ears. It is a further confirmation of previous judgments and injunctions of other courts of competent jurisdiction.
“The most important thing is that our adversaries are hell bent on taking us out of our seats. But what we have heard has clearly shown that the office of the Speaker of Rivers State House of Assembly is not vacant.
“It is not in contention. The Rivers State House of Assembly under my leadership is the only House known to law. A lot has been said about the issue of defection.
“Twenty-seven of us never defected to any other party. We were elected under the platform of the People Democratic Party and we never defected. We never took any step to defect to another party.
“What you see every time are mere plans by the governor. Siminialayi Fubara is sponsoring everything to remove us from office because he can’t withstand the rule of law. He doesn’t want to govern under the tenets of our democracy and he doesn’t want to obey the principles of separation of power.”
“The governor is afraid of democracy. That is why he is hell bent on removing all of us. He runs to every court, looking for how to remove us through the backdoor.
“What the court has said is clear: there is no such thing as defection. We have a right to defect but we never defected. The governor is the one sponsoring all the persons going from one court to another.”
But the APP, through the state’s Legal Adviser to APP, Henry Ekine, averred that the judge did not consider the merit of the case.
He said: “What we want you to know here is to tell the public – our esteemed members and the general public – that nothing substantial has changed. All of the decisions that have come from the various High Courts, courts of coordinate jurisdiction, I think will be settled when we get to the Supreme Court…”