Rivers Impeachment Plot Thickens, Protesters Besiege Assembly

Governor Chibuike Amaechi.

•Rivers is not Plateau, state insists  
•Soyinka, again warns Jonathan against executive impunity

Activities at the Rivers State House of Assembly were paralysed for hours Monday morning as hundreds of protesters stormed the Assembly complex along Moscow Road, Port Harcourt, demanding the resignation of the Speaker, Hon. Otelemaba Amachree and the Leader, Hon. Chidi Lloyd, for their roles in the suspension of the leadership of Obio/Akpor Local Government Area.

Following the protest, the assembly adjourned sine die (indefinitely), with the speaker alleging that the state was under siege by forces that were planning to cause confusion in order to force the declaration of a state of emergency in the state.

But while the protest was going on, a High Court sitting in Port Harcourt adjourned to May 23 the hearing on the matter brought before it by 27 members of the assembly who were suspended by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for their roles in the removal of the leadership of Obio/Akpor council. 

The protesters also said the suspension of the chairman, his vice-chairman and 17 councillors of the council, was illegal, null and void.

The crowd, which came from different local government areas of the state under the aegis of Grassroots Democratic Initiative (GDI), alleged that the assembly lied when it said it received a petition on financial recklessness and breach of security against the sacked leadership of the council.

They also said the assembly did not follow due process in the suspension of the leadership of the council.

Some of the protesters, who carried placards and entered the premises of the assembly, chanted slogans in support of the new chairman of the party in the state, Chief Felix Obuah.

Addressing journalists, the chairman of the group, Hon. Chuku Okechukwu, said: “The Speaker of the Rivers State House of Assembly, Hon. Otelemaba Amachree, and leader, Hon. Chidi Lloyd, did not receive any petition against the executive chairman of Obio/Akpor Local Government Area, and the seventeen lawmakers, neither did they follow due process in the so-called suspension.

“In fact, House Committee Chairman on Public Complaints and Petitions, Hon. Micheal Chinda did not receive any petition, neither was any sent to his office by the speaker as a memo to act on.

“The local government is the third tier of government, and as such deserves the constitutional respect due it.”

Okechukwu said the state was being thrown into “political turmoil because of the antics of self-ambition, self-grabbing and the self-aggrandising politicians with the intent of becoming political hawks in a democratic setting.”

The Director, Press of the state assembly, Mr. Udede Jim-Opiki, who addressed the protesters on behalf of the speaker, commended them for the peaceful protest, and appealed to them to remain law-abiding.

Jim-Opiki said the house could not sit due to the security situation in the state.

He explained that letters were sent to all the members of the House to reconvene by 10 am Monday, but that some group of people had invaded the assembly complex, thereby necessitating a postponement.

“We had visitors that didn’t look friendly; they didn’t come in tens or hundreds, but in their thousands. Some were chanting war songs, while some were calling for the resignation of the speaker. It was part of a script.

“The legislature is part of democracy, if the legislature is crippled, there will be no democracy,” he warned.

On when the state assembly might resume, he said: “We have adjourned sine die until normalcy returns to the state. There are ways to remove people, it is not the party that will say that people should go.”

On the five members who claimed ignorance of the indefinite postponement of the sitting of the house, he explained that he and his group got whiff of the planned disturbance late on Sunday night and only took the decision at the last second and it was probably too late to inform everybody at the time.

Reacting to the protest at the state assembly, the Commissioner for Information and Communications, Mrs. Ibim Semenitari, said the government had heard rumours that some people wanted to create the impression that there was a crisis in the state to warrant the declaration of a state of emergency.

Her words: “I am aware that a couple of hoodlums and rabble rousers are trying to cause disaffection and trying to pretend that there is chaos in Rivers State.

“However, we are certain that there is no chaos in Rivers State, government is in full control of the situation and we are briefed as and when due.

“Let me just say that as far back as about two weeks ago, we had heard of rumours of a few miscreants making an attempt to foist something that was totally undemocratic on the people of Rivers State.

“We are aware that people were imagining that it will be possible to attempt the Dariye treatment in Rivers State where they will take just five members of the House of Assembly out of 33 members and attempt to impeach the governor of the state.

“But this is Rivers State, this is not Plateau State and Nigerians are a lot more aware now than they were at that time. This democracy must stand and the people of Rivers State will defend every vote that they have cast for Governor Chibuike Amaechi.

“So there is no way it is going to happen that a very tiny insignificant minority in the House of Assembly will be able to oust Governor Rotimi Chibuike Amaechi.”

Semenitari insisted that Amaechi was still in total control of the state and advised people to go about their lawful duties.

She said the Commissioner of Police had been briefed about the situation in the area and expressed the hope that the police would be alive to their responsibilities.

“I do not know what the Commissioner of Police is doing to forestall the breakdown of law and order in Rivers State. I do know that he has been properly notified by the relevant security chiefs,” Semenitari said.

However, the PDP in the state has condemned the call by the state assembly for the redeployment of the State Commissioner of Police, Mr. Joseph Mbu, saying the call was baseless and malicious.

Obuah said the call was another demonstration of legislative rascality as the Commissioner of Police had discharged his duties diligently and should not be dragged into partisan politics.

Obuah also blamed the speaker for the rumours making the rounds of Amaechi's impending impeachment. Obuah said there was never a time the leadership of the party in the state contemplated the governor’s impeachment.

Meanwhile, the court, presided by Hon. Justice Sike Aprioku, chose the May 23 date after the counsel representing the PDP, Ken Njemanze (SAN), raised the issue of the court’s jurisdiction to serve the national headquarters of the party at Wadata Plaza, Abuja.

The defendant had filed a motion challenging the court’s jurisdiction in the suit.

“We are saying that the writ of summons is null and void. There are fundamental flaws in the suit. The suit is incomplete,” he said.

However, the counsel to the legislators, Emenike Ebete, insisted that due process was followed in serving the writ.

The judge ruled that the defendants be served again in court as a mark of fairness. He then adjourned the matter to May 23 for hearing.

However, commenting on the growing crisis in the state, Nobel laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka, once again cautioned President Goodluck Jonathan that the increasing flash points in the nation have reached an unsustainable level, stating that responsible governance must accept that it has an urgent duty to diminish, not increase them.

In a statement issued yesterday by the laureate, he reminded the president that even the notoriously short “Nigerian memory remains traumatised by recollection of the rape of Anambra that was enabled by the connivance of federal might, and the abandonment of all moral scruples in executive disposition.

“The people of Ogun State were humiliated by the antics of a power besotted governor, with their elected legislators locked out of the National Assembly for upwards of a year.”

Soyinka said that hideous travesty was again made possible by the abusive use of the police. He observed that even a child in this nation knows that the police derive its enabling and operational authority from the dictates of the centre, “so there can be no disguising whose will is being executed wherever democratic norms are flouted and the people's rights ground to mush under dictatorial heels.”

“There is an opportunity in Rivers State to break this spiralling culture of executive impunity - manifested in both subtle and crude ways - that is fast becoming the norm in a post-military dispensation that fitfully aspires to be called a democracy.