•Amaewhule and Fubara
The Speaker Martins Amaewhule-led Rivers State House of Assembly has described the recent appointments made by the State Governor, Siminalayi Fubara as illegal.
The lawmakers who sat at their chamber located in the Auditorium of the Legislative Quarters in Port Harcourt, condemned the appointments of some individuals as chairman and members of the Rivers State Investment Promotion Agency.
A statement signed by the special assistant on media to the speaker, Martins Wachukwu, said the condemnation was following a report by the Chairman of the House Committee on Commerce and Industry, Gerald Oforji.
Oforji was said to have presented a report on the inauguration of the Board of the Rivers State Investment Promotion Agency by Fubara.
In its report, the committee said that such an agency if properly established would create a conducive climate to attract and grow businesses in the state.
But the report regretted the absence of any law known to the Rivers State House of Assembly, establishing such an Agency.
The committee maintained that if such a law existed, the individuals nominated would have been subjected to the confirmation of the Rivers State House of Assembly.
Relying on the findings of the committee, the lawmakers in their various contributions, said that the governor in the exercise of his powers had relegated decency in governance to the background.
Amaewhule maintained that the action of the governor in appointing some individuals to an agency not known to any legislation in the state was condemnable.
He said Fubara had continued to deliberately act in defiance of extant laws and the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria as altered, knowing that such acts constituted misconduct; emphasising that such infractions would be properly addressed.
Amaewhule also recalled a similar action by Fubara when he appointed some persons to the Board of the Bureau for Public Procurement, and other appointments without regard to the provisions of extant laws guiding such appointments.
