Rivers crisis: You must not be compromised, Kalu warns Judiciary

The ongoing crisis plaguing Rivers State must be handled with caution to save it from unnecessarily being flamed in uncontrollable state of lawlessness, Chief Emeka Kalu, National Coordinator of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Coalition, has said.

He stated this in a statement following the crisis rocking Rivers State after the Court of Appeal stopped the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) from releasing allocation to the state.

Kalu in the statement said the judiciary is “expected to maintain its integrity and protect her independence by working to avoid being politically purchased to harm democratic processes and the ethics of law.”

According to him, the recent judgement by the Abuja Federal High Court division directing the RMAFC to stop releasing statutory monthly allocation to the State government was done out of bias and politically motivated plans to disrupt Fubara ‘s administration.”

The statement added, “It remains the height of injustice for a political party under the guise of personal interest to continue raising the dust of anarchy against the will of the people and the judiciary is expected to redeem and revitalize the failed system instead of allowing herself to be used to ruin the polity.

“Law has a process and once it is violated, its penalty takes effect. As stated in section 109 (ig) of the 1999 constitution,

“It was crystal clear that the embattled 27Rivers State law makers that defected to APC lost their seats and the business of the government must not be halted simply because such vacuum was created.

“Nigeria is currently experiencing economic hardship and if urgent steps are not taken to address the situation , crimes would continue to escalate the more as frustrated citizens resort to available means to make both ends meet .

“However, Sim Fubara committed no crime to have chosen to serve Rivers people in the capacity of a governor and using biasedly obtained court judgment to hunt him is to the detriment of Rivers people, Nigerians and our nascent democracy.

“The nation’s democratic values are fast eroding, dragged to the mud, carelessly derailing and in the worst hitting the wall if the judiciary fails to transform the system using the instrumentality of the law.

“No nation advances in the face of injustice and without bias , it behoves the judiciary to revamp the failing democracy through her demonstration of services integrity and respect for social justice.

“As the embattled law makers contravened the provisions of the law, would they be honoured for abandoning the party that sponsored their elections? Having violated the law, does the constitution need to celebrate or punish them for their offences? Injustice is a crime against the society and should not be condoned by anyone who understands the values of law and decency.

“In a nutshell, Fubara’s administration has continuously succeeded in positively impacting Rivers people that it even approved 85,000 minimum wage for workers despite the state of the nation. His government should be emulated than being hunted for no justifiable reasons . Therefore , the federal high court judgment instructing the Revenue Mobilization , Allocation and Fiscal Commission( RMAFC) to suspend remitting monthly statutory allocation to Rivers state government was not only biasedly obtained but one done out calculated attempt to destablize fubara’s concentration on governance.”