Prominent Ijaw leader, Chief Edwin Clark, criticised President Bola Tinubu’s peace arrangement with Rivers State Governor Siminalayi Fubara and Federal Capital Territory Minister Nyesome Wike on Tuesday describing it as ‘appauling’ and to the Ijaw people.
At a meeting in Abuja on Monday night, Tinubu engineered a ceasefire between the FCT minister and his political godson. The President, Wike, Fubara, and his deputy, Mrs Ngozi Odu, as well as a former governor of Rivers State, Peter Odili, attended the meeting.
During the meeting, Wike and Fubara signed an eight-point agreement to settle the state’s political turmoil.
The elder statesman stated in a press conference in Abuja that the Ijaw nation would not accept any agreement that would make Rivers State Governor Siminalayi Fubara a servant to Wike, as they are prepared to face whatever outcome of the current situation.
While urging the youngsters to remain calm, Clark said that the whole Ijaw people is prepared to go to court to oppose any act of tyranny aimed at converting Fubara, a democratically elected Governor, into Wike’s political puppet.
“It is obvious that Governor Siminialayi Fubara was ambushed and intimidated into submission. President Tinubu should know that with all the powers he possesses, he cannot override the Constitution.
“From all that transpired at the meeting, the laws of the land have not been obeyed. President Tinubu simply sat over a meeting where the constitution, which is the fulcrum of his office as President and which he swore to uphold and abide by, was truncated and desecrated.
“The eight resolutions reached, are the most unconstitutional, absurd, and obnoxious resolutions at settling feuding parties that I have ever witnessed in my life. As a matter of fact, some media captured it very well when they described it as directives,” he said.
“I’m appealing on behalf of all our people, to our dear son Governor Fubara to stand firm. The president of Nigeria has no authority over him. The president was elected, he too was elected.”
The PDP National Working Committee rejected the President’s intervention and informed the defectors that they could only re-enter the Assembly through new elections.
Speaking at a press conference following the PDP’s emergency NWC meeting on Tuesday, the party’s acting National Chairman, Umar Damagum, advised the lawmakers who defected to APC not to be misled by anyone in Abuja promising them a return to the House of Assembly without new elections.
Damagum stated that there was no reprieve for the defectors, who abandoned their seats due to defection from the PDP under Section 109 (1)(g) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 as amended.
He stated, quoting Section 109(1)(g), “A member of a House of Assembly shall vacate his seat in the House if: being a person whose election to the House of Assembly was sponsored by a political party, he becomes a member of another political party before the expiration of the period for which that House was elected:
“Provided that his membership of the latter political party is not as a result of a division in the political party of which he was previously a member or of a merger of two or more political parties or factions by one of which he was previously sponsored; or (h) the Speaker of the House of Assembly receives a certificate under the hand of the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission stating that the provisions of section 110 of this Constitution have been complied with in respect of the recall of the member.”
The PDP chairman reiterated that because the members had abandoned their positions, the only way for them to return was to seek new nomination and re-election on the platform of any political party of their choosing.
Glamour Adah
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