Rivers in whirlpool of council crisis

RIVERS STATE is once again on the brink and at a risk of sliding into violence due to the controversy surrounding the litigation over the administration of the third tier of government in the state.

Last week, 22 All Progressives Congress (APC) chairmen and their 297 councilors were sacked by a court which nullified the May 23, 2015 Local Government election that ushered them into power.

The crisis took a curious twist this week when a National Industrial Court sitting in Yenagoa, the Bayelsa State capital adjourned till the 6th of October, definite hearing on all pending applications between the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) state government and the APC council administrators meaning that they would continue in office till the outcome of the matter.

Presently scores of armed policemen have been deployed to strategic locations in Port Harcourt and to all the council secretariats to provide security for members of the caretaker committees set up by Governor Nyesom Wike, immediately after the earlier order of Justice Lambo Akanbi of the Federal High Court.

The sack of the chairmen and councilors who were the remnants of the APC left in the state government structure has put the party on the path of political oblivion and it has vowed to resist it.

The current crisis is rooted in the recent history of the state where since 2003; no ruling party has been tolerant of the opposition.

On Saturday, May 31, 2014, then Governor Chibuike Amaechi dissolved 21 out of the 23 local councils following the expiration of the tenure of elected council officers on Friday, May 30, 2014 and appointed APC members into caretaker committees.

This was opposed by the PDP, the main opposition platform at a period when the state was faced with escalating pattern of politically motivated violence.

The period between May 2014 and May 2015 was inauspicious for Amaechi to conduct council election because of the fear that Abuja, with all the control of federal apparatus will overwhelm the local APC.

Secondly, the top echelon of the APC did not want any fragmentation that could arise as a result of possible dissatisfaction council election primaries. The governor also used the period to spread patronage to some party members, who claimed they have been on the fringe since 2007.

After the conduct of the general election which took place in a climate of widespread fear and intimidation, with the APC losing the governorship and National Assembly elections, Amaechi’s government through Rivers State Independent Electoral Commission (RSIEC) on the 27th April, 2015, announced that council elections will be held on May 23, barely a week to the expiration of the regime.

The PDP which had won all the positions contested, perceived that the scheduled council election was a deliberate ploy by the APC to retain its tentacles in the councils and swiftly moved to legally uproot it by filing a suit at the Justice Akanbi’ s Federal High Court claiming that the plan of RSIEC to conduct the polls was illegal, provocative and a waste of resources.

When the matter came up for hearing, and Justice Akanbi sought to find out from the government and RSIEC why the PDP request for injunction should not be granted, their counsel, Beluolisa Nwofor, SAN notified the court that his clients had filed a suit at the Court of Appeal, challenging the jurisdiction of the lower court to entertain the PDP suit and the motion on notice to restrain further proceedings on the matter.

Based on this new twist, Justice Akanbi adjourned the matter sine die on April 29, 2015, but made a preservative order that none of the parties should do anything to foist on either the Court of Appeal or the Federal High Court, a fait accompli, literally meaning that no party should do anything depending the outcome on the alleged appeal and on the case in his court.

In spite of this order, the government of Rivers State and the RSIEC proceeded to conduct the elections and Amaechi declared after the exercise that state electoral body was mandated by law to organize local elections and has acted in accordance with the prescribed laws.

On May 29, the new PDP government of Wike was inaugurated and interestingly, on the 1st of June 2015, the new government debriefed all counsels in the matter and by the second day withdrew the state government and RSIEC appeal challenging the jurisdiction of the High Court to hear the matter filed by the PDP.

The new Commissioner for Justice and Attorney General, Emma Aguma, confirmed that the appeal was withdrawn even before he was sworn into office. He also said that he was not aware that the Police, INEC or the Department of State Security who were parties to the suit, has a pending appeal in the matter.

When the court gave its verdict last week, Justice Akanbi acknowledged that he was aware that the government and RSIEC had withdrawn their appeal and berated governor Amaechi and the electoral body for brazenly disobeying the order that the status quo be maintained.

He observed that both parties were fully aware that the matter was still pending in court, yet they went ahead with the election. He described their action as executive recklessness that warrants the court to evoke its jurisdictional consequential powers to curb executive lawlessness.

According to him, if a court fails to exert its power, it will not only lose its dignity and integrity, but will risk being reduced to a toothless dog, which can only bark and not bite. He therefore issued a mandatory injunction nullifying the said election.

This nullification created an avenue for Wike to forward the names of caretaker committee members to the House of Assembly for clearance. The governor later swore them in that same day.

But by the next day when the chairmen went to the councils to formally inaugurate other committee members, armed policemen barred them from entering the secretariats thus heightening political tension in the state. A discussion between the governor and the Inspector-General of Police later led to the withdrawal of the policemen.This week however, following the Industrial Court pronouncement, the police are back at the council secretariats.

Reacting to the earlier judgment, APC state chairman, Davis Ikanya, declared the order as illegal and unacceptable and argued that on the 29th of April, Justice Akanbi acknowledged that he was on notice that the jurisdiction of his court was on appeal by counsel to the RSIEC and Rivers government and therefore adjourned the matter before him pending the outcome of the appeal.

But Aguma argued that the Federal High Court was clearly within the parameters of the law and did not disobey any order of the Court of Appeal or do anything that foist on the Court of Appeal a fait accompli.

A source in PDP told The Guardian that the former councils officers are gone for good. He revealed that there has been concern within the party that in the event that the election petition tribunal cancels the governorship election, the APC would want to rely on the council officers for grassroots mobilization and resources. This, the PDP was not prepared to condone.

“The APC is confident that the governorship election will be cancelled and would rely on the sacked council officers to act as its bulwark in the battle to wrest power from Wike and the PDP. No serious minded political party will accept that. RSIEC has been reconstituted and will conduct elections soon. APC should come and test its popularity on a more level playing field that will be created,” he stated.