Stop Worsening Rivers Crisis – APC Tells Fubara, Rejects Edison Ehie as Speaker

 

The All Progressives Congress (APC) in Rivers State has reacted to a court order confirming Edison Ehie as the authentic speaker of the State House of Assembly.

 

The party rejected the court order.

 

Recall that a High Court sitting in Port Harcourt presided over by Justice M.W. Danagogo, halted the relocation of the conduct of the assembly’s “activities and meetings” to a more secure place.

 

The court also restrained the factional Speaker of the House, Martins Amaehwule, and 26 other lawmakers from disrupting and interfering with the Ehie-led assembly’s activities, pending the motion’s determination on notice.

 

Addressing a news briefing on Wednesday, the Rivers APC Caretaker Committee Chairman, Tony Okocha, asked Governor Siminalayi Fubara to refrain from acts capable of escalating the political crisis rocking the state.

 

Okocha decried the court order recognising Ehie as the speaker when judgment was reserved for January 2024 on a suit he filed seeking to be recognised as speaker.

 

The APC chairman stated that granting an ex parte order on the same case in which judgment had been reserved was an abuse of court processes.

 

Okocha said that APC would not sit and watch the ex parte order executed, alleging that the order was made in clear violation of known law principles and disobedience of the National Judicial Council (NJC) law.

 

He said the fear of the massive defection of 27 of the 31 PDP lawmakers to APC led to procuring an ex parte order to enable the governor to present his 2024 budget estimates to the assembly.

 

The Rivers APC chairman, however, wondered how the Ehie-led assembly would legitimately receive the 2024 Appropriation Bill.

 

Okocha said that the party would be left with no option but to petition the NJC immediately if the judge did not reverse himself.

 

He said that the state APC would not tolerate any intimidation and harassment of its new members in any form.

 

He justified the December 11 defection of the PDP members to APC on an “irreconcilable crisis in the PDP”, saying that the action was supported by a section of the country’s Constitution.