By Ezebunwo Ichemati.
● Focused
● Zero Distraction
● Unfazed
● Unperturbed
● Unpredictable
The above-listed attributes are the sterling qualities that GOVERNOR SIM has effortlessly displayed since the shameful and failed impeachment attempt against his person.
Amidst the deliberate provocations from the executioners of the inglorious impeachment attempt, Governor Sim has maintained and carried on with utmost propriety and civility; befitting of a Governor, which is an unequalled attribute in this part of the country.
The purported sitting yesterday, by the faction of the immediate past speaker of the Rivers State House of Assembly, is a flagrant disregard of a subsisting court order restraining all factions in the State Assembly and their affiliates from carrying out legislative proceedings of the Rivers State House Of Assembly pending the hearing and final determination of the Motion on Notice filed in this suit.
Ordinarily, where a matter is sub judice, parties to the action are precluded from taking any step, the effect of which may render nugatory to the decision of the Court.
This duty becomes even more imperative when the court expressly makes an Order by way of an Injunction, asking parties to refrain from further steps touching on the substance of the suit before it.
The Rt. Hon. Martins Amaewhule supposed faction has been served the court order and, therefore, must surrender themselves to the authority of the court which is already seized with the facts of the case pending hearing and determination, because their sitting yesterday amounts to Contempt ex facie curiae which means contempt committed outside the Court (Coram non judice) and therefore out of sight and hearing of the Judge.
The actions of Rt. Hon. Martins Amaewhule can be likened to the case between PDP vs The Rivers State Government under His Excellency Rotimi Amaechi and RSIEC, when the former got a court order from Justice Akanbi stopping the latter from conducting the proposed Local Government elections of May 23, 2015, pending hearing and determination of the suit before the court.
The then Rivers State Government under Rotimi Amaechi went ahead to conduct the Local Government Elections in flagrant disregard of the subsisting Order by Justice Akanbi and was subsequently punished for that action of disobedience to a court order because “You cannot put something on nothing and expect it to stay there. It will collapse”. If an act is void, then it is in law a nullity, and every proceeding or sitting founded on it, is not only bad but incurably bad.
When you begin to even take a critical look at the sudden reading and amendment of bills that have over the years been unattended to, you’ll know that the hastiness is borne out of the current political quagmire and not necessarily for the interest of Rivers people.
Like the Bill they proposed to amend the Rivers State Local Government Law No. 5 of 2018 in their purported sitting yesterday, which only seeks to remove the powers of the Governor as enshrined in the law from suspending Local Government Chairmen.
You want to remove powers from a man who has no intention of using them because he is not fighting anybody. We know the powers of a Governor and if he truly was fighting anybody a lot of Chairmen would be gone by now.
The truth is that, If we go by the bandwagon strategy that has been the practice since time immemorial, the State will become a political time bomb, that Governor Sim is evidently avoiding because of his selfless interest for the State and respect for the intervention of President Tinubu.
The other bill they proposed in their other sitting seeks to guarantee the financial autonomy of the Assembly.
All bills are only geared towards whittling down the powers of the Governor.
👉 Same powers they never whittled in the last 16 years.
👉 Same powers that have been in use since time immemorial.
👉 Same powers they all submitted to in the past.
You are the one preaching peace, but on the other hand, you are still the one scuttling the peace process by your actions.
“Eneke the bird says that since men have learned to shoot without missing, he has also learned to fly without perching”
So until genuine peace is achieved by actions and not lip service of press releases, all parties should be firing from all cylinders but one thing is certain FUBARA will complete his first 4 years.
E. P. I. C
SON OF REBISI KINGDOM.
