•Speaker Amaewhule and Governor Fubara
It is obvious that the process for the eventual impeachment of the Rivers State governor, Siminalayi Fubara by the House of Assembly now dominated by allies of the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, Nyesom Wike, is taking the speed of light.
This is as the Speaker of the House, Rt. Hon Martins Amaewhule issued another letter to the governor demanding the sack of all 19 commissioners and political appointees who were not screened by him and a fresh list of nominees be forwarded to the Assembly for proper screening, reports Vanguard.
The letter, which was addressed to the governor today and signed by the Speaker said, “your attention should once again be drawn to your illegal appointments of persons to serve in various offices without forwarding their names for screening and confirmation as required by the 1999 constitution as amended and other extant laws”.
Amaewhule specifically frowned at the inability of the governor to forward the name of Dagogo Iboroma for screening as Attorney general and Commissioner of Justice in the state, stating that such appointment contravenes section 192 (2) and (5) as well as section 195 (1) of the 1999 constitution as amended.
The letter however requested that the governor should submit a list of nominees for appointment as commissioners into the Rivers state executive council as well as list of nominees for appointments to fill vacancies in all the offices within 48 hours.
Meanwhile, the Commissioner for Environment, Hon Sydney Tambari responded that the 27 lawmakers were acting on the stigma of their imagination, adding that they were over-stepping their bounds and heating up the polity even more.
Tambari explained that all the Commissioners were screened by the then Speaker of the House of Assembly, Rt. Hon Edison Ehie, now Chief of Staff, Government House, who was recognized by the competent court of the land as the authentic speaker of the House.
According to the former publicity secretary of the People’s Democratic Party, PDP, in the state, “I was screened by Edison Ehie who was duly recognized by the Court as the speaker of the state House of Assembly. Before then, this group of people had defected from the PDP and went to wherever they went to.
After Edison Ehie’s resignation, “Rt. Hon Victor Oko-Jumbo took over as speaker of the House and he screened and confirmed some of the commissioners and appointees”, adding that the governor cannot send any fresh list of nominees to this Assembly.
“Their demand for the sacking of the commissioners has been overtaken by event because all the commissioners and political appointees were duly screened. The Governor has no reason to send a list of nominees to them”.
Tambari took a swipe at the lawmakers when he said that they were acting outside the decision of the Supreme Court which talked about the 2024 budget and “not to come and sack commissioners and political appointees in the state. The presentation of the budget is at the discretion of the governor which has since been overtaken by events,” he said.
