A Constitutional lawyer and Member of Opposition Lawmakers Coalition, Hon. Barr Ikenga Imo Ugochinyere says he has uncovered plot by the outgoing Rivers State Local Government Councils Chairmen to obtain a Court injunction to allow them to be collecting monthly allocation after the expiration of their tenure in June.
According to Ugochinyere who represents Ideato North/South Federal Constituency of Imo State in the House of Representatives, the order seeking the injunction was filed at Federal high Court, Abuja, at 4pm, on Friday.
He called on the Chief Judge of the Federal High Court, Justice Tsoho, to check the suit and ensure Federal high Court is not embarrassed again by those desperate politicians.
“My attention have been drawn to a secret court process filed around 4pm at the close of work at the Federal High Court, Abuja by pro- Wike group, seeking for an order that will allow then access to the Local Government allocation of Rivers State.
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“The suit is seeking to allow these men access to the statutory LGA allocation after their tenure must have expired in few days time. They still want to be taking the LGA allocation and be sharing with their paymasters. Wonders shall never end in Nigeria!
“Imagine as an LGA chairman, your tenure is expiring in few days, an illegitimate House of Assembly with lawmakers whose seat have been declared vacant changes the law in one bedroom in a village in Emohua and told you that you can stay in office beyond your constitutional mandate and oath of office until whenever there is another election. Even Nkuruziza of Burundi couldn’t do that.
“Then knowing it’s impossible, you rush to Court again seeking for an illegitimate order that will allow you even after your tenure have expired to stay in your hide out in Abuja and LGA allocation alert will be dropping in your account and you will be sharing it.
“I call on the Chief Judge of the Federal High Court to check this suit and ensure Federal high Court is not embarrassed again by these desperate Abuja Politicians. We are watching. At the midnight of the expiration of the tenure of the present LGA Chairmen in few days time nothing on earth can make them parade as LGA Chairmen.
“The law is the law. You can’t extend your tenure while in office. It has never happened in Nigeria and can’t start with Rivers State. Constitutional democracy is sacred and will be protected,” the lawyer lawmaker narrated.
Ugochinyere recalled that a Rivers State High Court sitting in Port Harcourt declaration that the extension of the tenure of Local Government Council chairmen by the State House of Assembly as ‘unconstitutional and ultra vires to their oath of office’.
“It was earlier this week when the presiding judge, Justice Daketima Gabriel Kio, in Suit No: PHC/1320/CS/2024, held that the Local Government Law No. 2 of 2024, purporting to extend the tenure of Local Government Council Chairmen for an additional six months after the expiration of their tenure was invalid.
“Kio stated that it was inconsistent with the provisions of the 1999 Constitution and Section 9 (1) of the Rivers State Local Government Law No. 5 of 2018.
“The chairmen of Opobo/Nkoro and Bonny local government areas, Enyiada Cookey-Gam, and Anengi Claude Wilcox, respectively, and four others were the Applicants in the suit while the governor of Rivers State, speaker of the Rivers State House of Assembly, Attorney General of the State, among others, were the Respondents.
“The court further held that the applicable law in the circumstances was the Rivers State Local Government Law No. 5 of 2018 that fixed three-year tenure for Local Government Chairmen and Councillors and not the Local Government Law No. 2 of 2024, which was enacted to unlawfully extend their tenure.”
He therefore wondered why the soon to go chairmen could not respect the subsists Court order and the Abuja High Court which can not feign ignorance of an earlier ruling and entertain such request aimed at desecrating the Nigerian judiciary and democracy.
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