THE All Progressives Congress (APC) leadership in Rivers State has called on the 27 State House of Assembly members loyal to the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Nyesom Wike, to immediately commence an impeachment process against the state Governor Siminalayi Fubara.
The State APC Caretaker Committee Chairman, Tony Okocha, made the call at a news briefing in Port Harcourt on Tuesday, May 7.
According to Okocha, the governor has continued to disrespect President Bola Tinubu by refusing to implement the eight-point peace agreement reached in Abuja regarding the political crisis in the state, which Fubara signed.
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Okocha said a state as crucial as Rivers State could not accept a governor like Fubara.
“Our charge to the Assembly is to immediately commence an impeachment process against the governor.
“And if they don’t do that, there is what they call party discipline. We shall invoke the relevant section of the Constitution,” Okocha vowed.
The APC’s call for Fubara’s impeachment came barely 24 hours after the governor said the House of Assembly, led by the Speaker, Martin Amaewhule, did not exist.
Fubara also said that some of his commissioners were working against him.
The governor decried how the state House of Assembly had been working at variance with his government.
He threatened that the House members could cease to exist as state lawmakers if he so wished.
Fubara said these when he received a group of Bayelsa State political and traditional leaders who were in Port Harcourt, the state capital, to seek a resolution to the political unrest in the state and better ties between the two states.
Fubara told the delegation, led by the former Governor of Bayelsa State and senator representing Bayelsa West, Henry Seriake Dickson, that he had shown restraint since the crisis escalated in the state.
He acknowledged the roles some political figures, particularly his predecessor and Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nyesom Wike, played in his ascent to the governorship but stated that such efforts wouldn’t cause him to idolise a man.
In addition, the governor bemoaned the way some of his commissioners were working against him.
The ICIR reports that many of Fubara’s commissioners, whom he claimed were working against him, are Wike’s loyalists. Some of them served in the former governor’s administration.
Wike and Fubara have been at loggerheads over who controls the state’s PDP structure and other issues.
Though a PDP member, Wike currently serves in the APC government.
Following the hostility between the two leaders, 26 members of the River State House of Assembly members decamped from the PDP to APC in 2023, shortly after assuming office.
The feud had degenerated into nearly physical combat between their loyalists, and the possible chaos was so palpable in the state that President Tinubu had to intervene twice before tempers were calmed.
However, the camps of both leaders have continued to threaten a showdown less than a year after the leaders were gamboling in the same political space.
A reporter with the ICIR
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