- Fubara is a man of peace, will implement agreement, says Commissioner
- Pro-Wike lawmakers withdraw impeachment notice
- It’s inconceivable – Lamido knocks PDP over Tinubu’s intervention in Rivers crisis
The Rivers State Commissioner for Information, Joe Johnson, has said that his principal, Governor Siminalayi Fubara, didn’t sign a ‘peace agreement’ with his predecessor, Nyesom Wike, under duress at the Presidential Villa Monday night.
He stated this yesterday during a live appearance on Channels Television’s Lunchtime Politics programme in defence of his principal, who has been upbraided over the governor’s seeming surrender of his mandate by what observers described as an unconstitutional peace deal.
“I was in that meeting and the governor did not negotiate from the place of weakness. There was no pressure from anywhere. When people disagree, they come to the roundtable and settle,” the Commissioner said.
“There is nothing to doubt (the agreement), we have gone beyond the issue as to who signed, and who didn’t sign,” Johnson added when asked whether the governor signed the peace agreement.
The peace document released on Monday had signatures of Wike, Fubara and his deputy, Prof. Ngozi Odu; and House of Assembly factional Speaker, Matins Amaehule, among others. However, reports alleged that Fubara did not sign the resolution as his signature on arrival at the villa was lifted and fixed on the resolution paper.
Johnson reiterated that to confirm the governor’s endorsement, Fubara would implement the agreement reached because he is committed to the peace process. He said: “The Bible that we all profess says we should pursue peace with all men at all cost. Mr Governor is a stickler for the rules. And if His Excellency, the President has intervened, he (Fubara) is not a man of perfidy. He will not say something and do the other.
“In the next couple of hours, I will be unveiling some of the approvals His Excellency has already given as an indication that he is prepared for peace.”He added that the governor did not show weakness when he agreed to the decisions during Monday’s meeting.
Rivers has been a theatre of the absurd in the last two months with the state House of Assembly serving as the ‘boxing ring’. The rift between Fubara and Wike split lawmakers in the House with 27 of them defecting from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to the All Progressives Congress (APC), a party in whose central government Wike currently serves as minister.
The feud also saw the emergence of parallel sittings, an impeachment plot against the governor, the demolition of the Assembly complex, and a gale of resignations of pro-Wike commissioners in Fubara’s cabinet.
However, there are indications that Fubara may have breached the number one item in the resolution reached in Abuja. Part of the resolution directed Fubara and his team to withdraw all court cases instituted against the Rivers House of Assembly.
But at the resumed hearing of the suit brought by the governor against the House before a state High Court, sitting at Isiokpo, on Wednesday, Fubara’s counsel, D.O. Okoro (SAN), told the court that he does not have any instruction from his client to withdraw the matter.
Okoro was responding to information brought before the court presided over by Justice O. Ben-Whyte, by the counsel to the House of Assembly, Chief Ferdinand Orbih (SAN).
Orbih had informed the court that he had the instruction of his clients to withdraw the matter from court as a result of the development arising from the agreement of the parties in this suit. The court, after hearing from the duo, directed that Fubara’s counsel should confer with his client concerning the recent development as submitted by the defence counsel. The case was thereafter adjourned to January 31, 2024, for a report of settlement.
The court had earlier barred the Assembly and the Chief Justice of the state from impeaching the governor pending the determination of the motion on notice before it.
In another development, the lawmakers loyal to Wike sat yesterday at the Assembly quarters on Aba Road and withdrew the impeachment notice served on Governor Fubara. The sitting, which they claimed was held in the early hours of the day, was not witnessed by journalists.
But a statement signed by Martins Wachukwu, media aide to Martins Amaehule, said following the agreement reached on December 18, and endorsed by President Bola Tinubu, the House has withdrawn the notice of impeachment and would abide by the terms of the agreement and the advice of the President.
The statement said that Amaehule, while reading the letter to his group signed by 24 members, declared that the impeachment notice against Fubara had been withdrawn.
Still embittered with Monday’s truce, convener of the Pan Niger Delta Forum (PANDEF), Edwin Clark, has blamed Wike for the crisis in Rivers during an interview on Arise TV on Wednesday.
The Ijaw leader said the immediate past Rivers governor had led five lawmakers in 2013 to impeach the Speaker. He wondered why the same Wike should be arguing that the same five lawmakers in the state today are not constitutional.
He said: “Wike is a contradicting fellow. He does not believe in one thing. Same Wike in 2013 led five members of the House of Assembly under the leadership of Michael Chinda when Amaechi was ruling. He was supported by the presidency so they had the security with them. Five of them went to impeach the Speaker.” He urged President Tinubu to call the FCT Minister to order. He also advised Wike to desist from intimidating Fubara for the sake of peace.
Reacting to the development, former governor of Jigawa State, Sule Lamido, has described the intervention of President Tinubu in the Rivers political crisis, a PDP state, as inconceivable. Lamido stated this in a statement via his official Facebook page yesterday.
The former governor tackled the PDP over what he described as the party’s lack of action in the crisis plaguing the Rivers State. He said: “Do we still have the National Working Committee (NWC) of the PDP? Or better still, do we have a party called PDP?
“If we have one of the two, how come their total absence in the saga playing out in the PDP family in Rivers? Is the docility of the leadership of the PDP so comatose to the extent that President Tinubu of APC, our sworn rival and opponent, is now the grand patriarch of the PDP?
“It is inconceivable that a political party will simply sit back and allow its fortunes to be taken over by a rapacious scavenger, the APC. What President Tinubu did in the so-called peace meeting is not brokering peace in Rivers State, but using his office to enhance the fortunes of his political party.
“Many areas are yearning for peace in the country where President Tinubu’s political expertise, sagacity, and wisdom are needed. What skills has he applied to stop the killings of citizens in Nigeria, which is his primary responsibility which he has conveniently looked away?
“Unwittingly the so-called peace accord in Rivers only planted the mines, which will explode in the not-too-distant future with collateral consequences on the entire country. Asari Mujaheed Tokubo and Chief Edwin Clark alluded to this last week”
“More to the eternal shame of PDP NWC is that a tribal voice of Ijaws through Chief Edwin Clark’s press conference has to be deployed to challenge the illegality and unconstitutionality of the peace accord.
“Like Chief Clark said in the press conference, if Tinubu as the then governor of Lagos could stand up and fight President Olusegun Obasanjo’s awesome power and personality and endure to overcome, can’t PDP do likewise?
“The PDP must take off from where Chief Clark started to fight this illegality through our justice system and all other legal means possible!
“If the National Executive of the PDP does not have the nerve to stand up and protect its own, it should honorably step down to allow for the election of competent hands.
“To Fubura, the document you signed was in an environment not friendly to real conflict resolution and it was presided over by the force of fear, intimidation, and blackmail. Therefore shred the document and toss it into the trash can. Fubara may wish to know that President Tinubu, who chaired the meeting, was running with the deer and hunting with the hound!” he said.
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The Guardian
