A former President of the Delta State Customary Court, Justice Miakpor Emiaso (retd.), has said that President Bola Tinubu made a blunder in releasing Rivers State allocation to the Sole Administrator of the state.
He said: “It is unlawful, it is unconstitutional, you cannot release funds to a sole administrator, and I mean it is very wrong.
“The constitution does not conceive of a situation where you even appoint a sole administrator to run a state. Appointing a sole administrator is unconstitutional; anything the sole administrator does there is ultra vires, null, and void because there is no arrangement under the constitution for the appointment of a sole administrator to administer a state.
“There is no arrangement in the constitution that permits any authority in this country to suspend an elected officer, least of all a governor, so the president suspending the governor of Rivers State is a very major threat to our democratic system.
“It means that the president can suspend any governor of any state; that is not democracy, and that is not the spirit of our constitution. He has no power to suspend an elected officer.
“There are so many decisions of our courts to that effect that nobody can suspend the governor. Nobody can suspend even members of the House of Assembly if they are elected. There is a process for removing them, and it is not by suspension.”
“By my own assessment Nwaeke is neither under any spell nor under duress. He is a career civil servant in the civil service of Rivers State, whose career span over 40 years service in the state civil service. He rose to the apex of the civil service. Therefore he knows exactly what he has done.
“Mr. Nwaeke procured flight ticket from Port Harcourt to Abuja, left his house on his own, boarded his flight, landed in Abuja and headed straight to his destination to deliver and read out the script already written by his co-conspirators. The aim of the script is to discredit the Governor, make the President lose confidence in him and paint him black before the general public.
“As a party, we know that all what Nwaeke read in the written script were all lies from the pit of hell and cannot stand the test of time. We therefore want to use this medium to set the record straight, and educate Rivers people and indeed Nigerians on the true nature of the man “Dr George Nwaeke and the true state of affairs in the state.
“That George Nwaeke lied when he claimed that he was with the Governor, when he handed over bag of money to Edison Ehie to bomb the House of Assembly. The true position is that when the bombing incident took places in the House of Assembly, men of the Nigeria police made over 7 arrests, transferred the suspects to force Headquarters Abuja.
“The suspects were charged to court in Abuja and remanded in kuje correctional Centre for over 8 months. They were later transferred to Port Harcourt division of the Federal High Court.
“They were equally remanded in the Port Harcourt Correctional Centre because of lack of diligent prosecution by the police. The presiding judge struct out and dismissed the case early this year and the suspects were set free. Accusing the Governor, Edison and Chijioke Ihunwo of being responsible for the bombing is neither here nor there.”
“His claim that Fubara promise to work for Sen Bala Mohammned in 2027 General election is also a lie. As we know, Bala is the Governor of Bauchi state and chairman PDP Governors forum, Fubara doubles as his Deputy. Both of them are at liberty to meet anywhere, anytime to discuss matters of PDP.
“Besides, Bala has not told Nigerians he is running for the office of president in 2027. Nwaeke and his co-conspirators simply put together this narrative to pitch the president aganst our Governor. It is dead on arrival.”(Vanguard)
