BREAKING: Rivers’ State Of Emergency Is Usurpation Of Power
A former Rivers State Attorney-General, Dame Aleruchi Cookey-Gam, has faulted President Bola Tinubu’s state of emergency in Rivers State.
Naija News reports that Mrs. Cookey-Gam said the President’s action in Rivers State was unconstitutional and an usurpation of power.
In an interview with Arise News on Friday, the former Commissioner of Justice under former Governor Peter Odili stated that suits would be filed against the President’s action.
The former Secretary to the Rivers State government under former Governor Rotimi Amaechi stressed that the crisis in the state did not warrant the President’s action.
Cookey-Gam noted that what was paramount was peace and normalcy so that Governor Siminalayi Fubara, his deputy and members of the House of Assembly would resume their offices.
Her words: “Several options are available to persons directly affected by the exercise of the powers by the president and I believe that suits will be filed against the unconstitutional acts of the President.
“On the part of the citizens, there isn’t much that can be done, since the sole administrator has taken office. But in carrying out his responsibilities he has to be neutral, and he has to be unbiased. But if he starts tampering with structures especially those recognized by the constitution of tenured officers. Then it becomes a problem for anybody who is watching the actions of the sole administrator.
“I believe he may necessarily have to have someone he calls the Secretary to the government to carry out some of his assignments. But the emergency rule is temporary and what we would like to see is a situation where things come back to normalcy as quickly as possible. It is temporary measure, even though we believe that the problems in Rivers State had not gotten to the stage where we would have usurpation of powers of elected officials but that is where we found ourselves now.
“In that situation we expect things to be fast-tracked so that we come back to normalcy and we have our elected officials occupying the rightful positions, both the Governor, the Deputy Governor and House of Assembly members.“
