The Nigerian Bar Association, or NBA, has once more urged President Bola Tinubu to promptly restore Governor Siminalayi Fubara to his elected role as governor of Rivers State.
The NBA argued that Tinubu’s expulsion of Fubara was unconstitutional.
In response to the political crisis roiling the oil-rich state, President Tinubu proclaimed a state of emergency in Rivers State last Tuesday. This was followed by what many Nigerians have characterised as the unconstitutional suspension of the elected governor, his deputy, and every member of the House of Assembly.
Ibok-Ete Ibas, a retired navy chief, was named the state’s sole administrator by the president.
The NBA said in a statement right after that the President did not have the authority to suspend democratically elected officials.
In a follow-up to its previous statement, the NBA, whose president, Afam Osigwe, was a guest on Channels Television’s Sunday Politics, demanded that Fubara be reinstated as Rivers State’s governor since the constitution does not recognise a sole administrator.
“That is our belief, that is what we expect the president to do, to restore him (Fubara) back to power having unconstitutionally removed him,” Osigwe said on the programme when asked if the president should recall the governor.
“And that is why we do not recognise that a sole administrator is the rightful person to occupy the government house in Rivers State having been appointed unconstitutionally.
“Even when I saw him taking oath of office, I was wondering which oath he was taking because he was taking an oath not known to the constitution, the constitution does not recognise an administrator,” he said.
Osigwe compared the issue in Rivers State to someone who has a headache and uses a sledgehammer on his head to illustrate how the incorrect method is being used to solve it.
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According to him, the actions being done to solve the Rivers issue “are extensive, overreaching, undemocratic, and most importantly, unconstitutional.”
He insisted that only a political solution could end the issue in Rivers State since it is a political one.
“I do not believe that it (Section 305) is not explicit, I simply believe that we deliberately refuse to apply it the way it is,” Osigwe said.
Osigwe also does not believe that the national assembly approval legitimized the President’s action.
He said that the National Assembly’s approval is like placing something on nothing.
