The Supreme Court has ordered the Accountant-General of the Federation to withhold allocations to the Rivers State Government until Governor Siminalayi Fubara presents the state budget to the Rivers Assembly headed by Martins Amaewhule.
The court also declared Amaewhule as the legitimate Speaker of the Assembly and ordered other elected members of the House to forthwith resume sitting.
ThisNigeria reports that a five-member panel of the apex court, in its lead judgement, dismissed Governor Fubara’s claim that due to the defection of the lawmakers, he was forced to invoke the doctrine of necessity by presenting the state’s Appropriation Bill to the only five remaining members of the Assembly.
In the judgement delivered by Justice Emmanuel Agim, the Supreme Court also awarded N5million cost against Fubara, accusing him of destroying the state government over his fear of being impeached.
The Apex court lambasted the governor for engaging in criminal activity of demolishing the House of Assembly with impunity just to prevent 27 legislators in the House of assembly from sitting to carry out lawful activities.
Justice Agim ordered the the Clerk and Deputy Clerk who were unlawfully redeployed out of the House of assembly must be allowed to resume work alongside the House of assembly workers.
The court held that it was aberration for governor Fubara to operate with only 4 out of the 32 House of assembly members under the guise of baseless fears that he would be impeached.
According to the Justices, Fubara by his unlawful act among others, collapsed the House of assembly and used his immunity under section 308 of the 1999 Constitution to carry out barbaric acts against the rule of law.
The Supreme Court affirmed the judgments of the Court of Appeal and the Federal high court, both in Abuja which had earlier declared the acts against the 27 state of House of Assembly members as unlawful and illegal.
A sum of N10M fine was imposed on Fubara to be paid to the House of assembly and the 27 members who instituted the suit against him.
The federal high court had held that the receipt and disbursement of monthly allocations since January last year by governor Siminalayi Fubara was a Constitutional sommersault and aberration that must not be allowed to continue.
Justice Joyce Abdulmalik who delivered the Federal high court judgment had last year issued an order that the presentation of the 2024 budget by Fubara before a 4-member Rivers House of Assembly was an affront to the Constitutional provision.
Specifically, the Judge had said that Fubara action in implementing unlawful budget smacked gross violations of the 1999 Constitution he swore to protect.
The judge had therefore restrainined CBN, Accountant General of the Federation, Zenith Bank and Access Bank from further allowing Fubara to access money from the Consolidated Revenue and Federation Account.
