“How can Tinubu watch his Minister, Wike, doing what he is doing to Rivers State and he cannot stop him?”

By KEMI KASUMU

The Constitution is clear. I want to quote from one of the Senior Advocates of Nigeria, he said: “I have always found it extremely nauseating and insulting to my knowledge of the law why those who desecrated and violated our Constitution are always granted remedies by our courts.”

Former Convener, Civil Societies Situation Room and Country Director, Action Aid, Ene Obi, has called on President of Nigeria, Mr. Bola Ahmed Tinubu, to stop his Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nyesom Wike, now before he set Rivers State, which she describes as an integral part of the nation’s economy, on fire.

Obi made this call while featuring as a guest on an Arise Television interview programme, monitored by The DEFENDER, night of Thursday October 31, 2024, saying, “How can Tinubu watch his Minister, Nyesom Wike, doing what he is doing to Rivers State from Abuja and he cannot stop him?”

According to her, Wike should go and know that he is no long the Governor of Rivers State and he is not even a member of the government current there and he is not an ex-officio, “So, Wike should leave Rivers State alone. He should leave Governor Fubara alone to let him serve the people of Rivers well.”

She wanted Tinubu to know that, as President, he is also responsible for the well being of Rivers State people and so should come out of his siddon look kind of attitude and begin to chide the man he appointed as Minister of the FCT, Nyesom Wike, who currently sits there with him in Abuja and is throwing bombs to his own state where he was once a governor and is no longer a governor and doing it in a way that is affecting ability of the sitting Governor, Sir Siminalayi Fubara, to deliver good governance to the people of the state.

Asked to bare her mind about what is happening in the state where the political elite have completely captured the judiciary and are using the courts well in their business of manipulations of destiny of the people, Ene Obi said the judiciary now need to be called out and that the Supreme Court of Nigeria needs to be called to order by the citizens of Nigeria, adding that every Nigerian citizen has responsibility to shape the country’s political and judiciary leaders and call them to other as, according to her, the highest office in the country is the Office of the Citizen of Nigeria.

In her words, “Nyesom Wike is no longer governor of Rivers, he is now a minister and so he should allow Governor Fubara to govern his people well. Wike has spent his time and now it is Fubara and after Fubara there will be another citizen of Rivers that will come up on board. Are they thinking of the people? Local Government is where you have the closest governance to the people and we are now getting caught in a lot of things. It is really frustrating what is going in Nigeria.”

Speaking to the needless crisis in the state, she said, “The Constitution is clear. I want to quote from one of the Senior Advocates of Nigeria, he said: “I have always found it extremely nauseating and insulting to my knowledge of the law why those who desecrated and violated our Constitution are always granted remedies by our courts.”

“And then he said Section One of the 1999 Nigerian Constitution says the Constitution is supreme and everything must be done according to the Constitution and now it’s not done. He says the same Constitution says in Section 109 sub-Section 1(g) that “Any member of the House of Assembly shall vacate his seat in the House if, being a person whose election to the House of Assembly was sponsored by a political party, he becomes a member of another political party before the expiration of the House he was elected.”

She said, “The Constitution is very clear! And so you have a massive population of the Rivers Assembly that decided to move to another party and then they moved back and we are having them dancing because they believe the current Governor does not have to be able to control them. I think we need to have a turn around. What kind of grandfathers or even ancestors do we become in the future?

“When you are thinking about somebody who has been your great grandfather, you think with pride because there are beautiful stories about them. Members of the political class, what they are doing now, which of their children will be proud of them? In turn you are looking at the local government, you are getting the laws and look at the court.

“We need to call the judiciary to order. It is about time that citizens say, ‘Look’, the greatest responsibility is with the citizenry. The highest post in the land is to be a citizen of a country. We need to rise to the occasion. If we leave elections to INEC, INEC alone is not enough. Yes, we put the burden on the Chairman and then the political class comes down on them, overwhelm them and the citizens are not speaking. They (the INEC) will fall just like any other person.”

On the escape route that judiciary would use to exonerate themselves as they claim they were specific about decisions they were making as to whether the four members of the Assembly Governor Fubara is working with were legally and properly constituted, Ene Obi interjected saying, “My dear brother Charles, how many court orders have we gotten for the Rivers State House of Assembly in the current dispensation since the election? How many injunctions have we gotten?

“I think the judiciary seems not to know the kind of responsibility that they carry. The judiciary is supposed to be an habitat. They are not even supposed to be involved in elections. In terms of pronouncement, they are supposed to see if there is an argument between two people, just like they made a joke out of the Kogi election that 2022 Electorate Law is very, very clear on over voting. The Constitution is very specific on all of that.

“But you a population of just about 238,000 qualified and accredited or is it the register of those who ware supposed to vote? And at the of the day you have more than 400,000 results declared and somebody is winning on that and you say it’s okay. I think the Supreme Court should call itself to question. It’s important for them to do. It’s so embarrassing.”

As for whether she was surprised that the Rivers State has been stuck into this toxic political environment, she said, “I am not surprised, I am just frustrated. I feel very frustrated because our people are really, really suffering. This is a time that you joke with citizens…. You cannot use N200 or N500 and say you want to go and buy garri.

“A lot of frustration is going on.  Remember that more than a hundred million Nigerians are below the poverty line. So when you have a case like that, whatever is reaching a community, why is the squabble for the local government election? See something that is even interesting, to say that APC did not contest, another one did not contest and there is another party that won. They are fighting each other and they are using the state machinery.”

On whether she thinks it’s all about money, she said, “I think the citizens need to call them out. I think we are tired of it. Governor Fubara and Minister Wike they are not the only Nigerians. Even on the day that they were holding election, there were many other elections that were going on but Rivers’ was the thorn in the flesh of everybody. And so what are you doing? They need to end this up. They need to give up. They are not more citizens than others.”

Speaking to the questions bothering about why the people have to suffer because two political leaders are fighting, Ene Obi said, “I think we need to call both the two of them, especially Nyesom Wike, himself, he has left the state and he should leave the state alone.

“It’s an oil environment, an environment that should have been producing and accommodating a lot of workers, they are turning it into a battle ground? Do they know that there is tomorrow? I think it’s time for them to start repentance,” Ene Obi concluded.