Wike Vs Fubara: Tinubu’s Pro-Wike 8-Point Deal Declared Illegal
Human Rights Lawyer and Senior Advocate of Nigeria, SAN, Femi Falana and others have kicked against the truce brokered by President Bola Tinubu to resolve the crisis in Rivers State.
The political tussle is between the camps of Governor Siminalyai Fubara and the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Nyesom Wike.
Speaking on the 8-point resolution by Tinubu, Falana said that the truce brokered by the president might have breached the provisions of the 1999 Constitution of Nigeria and therefore it is unconstitutional. He added that the President had no constitutional role in the Rivers State crisis and so his intervention was advisory.
“I agree with former Governor Tunde Fashola SAN, who has said that President Tinubu has no constitutional role to resolve the political crisis in Ondo and Rivers States. Therefore, the intervention of the president in both cases is purely advisory,” he said.
Falana said the presidential reinstatement of the 27 cross carpeting lawmakers is alien to the constitution in every material particular.
“In the case of Abegunde v Labour Party (2015) LPELR 24588 (SC), the Supreme Court held that a legislator who abandoned the political party that sponsored him and decamped to another political party has automatically lost a seat in the parliament.
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“However, the cross carpeting legislator can only retain his seat if he can prove that the political party that sponsored him is divided into two or more factions,” he said.
“It is also necessary to point out that until a by-election is conducted by INEC to fill the 27 vacant seats, the remaining members of the House are competent to conduct legislative business except the impeachment of the governor , which can only be carried out by the two thirds of the entire members of the House of Assembly,” he added.
Also speaking on the issue, Dayo Akinlaja (SAN), said the agreement was not proper for democracy in the country because it attempts to replace constitutionality with political compromise.
“I think the matter is beyond political settlement. Once the speaker has made the pronouncement that the seats of the lawmakers were vacant, I think it is not amenable to political compromise,” he said.
The National Leadership of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, A leader of the Ijaw people and elder Statesman, Edwin Clark and other leaders have also rejected Tinubu’s resolutions vowing to to go with it.
