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By Pius Mordi

When the apex court in the land gives a judgment, it carries the weight of a final arbiter for which there is no appeal. That puts a burden on the Justices. It becomes incumbent on them to take every factor – political, economic – into consideration. When there was more of politics that influence its decision, it takes measures to advice that the ruling should not be cited as a precedent. It happened in 1979 when the Justices had to navigate the constitutional requirement that to be elected president, the candidate should score at least 25 percent of votes in at least two thirds of the states.
Coming at a time there when there were 19 states in the country, it was mathematically impossible to arrive at a precise figure in terms of number of states. But arrive at a decision the learned justices did, but it came with a caveat: It was not to be cited as a precedent.

The pronouncements made by the Supreme Court in the Rivers crisis were dating bold and monumental. In one of the judgments, the apex court barred the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), the Accountant General of the Federation and other agencies from releasing funds to Rivers State Government until it purges itself of what the court described as “flagrant disobedience to court orders.” It held that the actions of Governor Simi Fubara over the defection of 27 members of the Rivers Assembly is an act of “brigandage and dictatorship” aimed at preventing the House from performing its legitimate functions under the speakership of Martyns Amaewhule.

While it has established a precedent on similar incidents in the past where governors recognised the minority group in the state houses of assembly, as was the case with Nyesom Wike, the main protagonist in the Rivers State crisis who chose to work with only six out of over 30 lawmakers at some point in his time as governor of Rivers State, it failed to resolve the issue of the true status of the pro-Wike group. The Amaewhule-led group was directed to resume as the elected representatives of the people. The suit on their eligibility as lawmakers having earlier decamped from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), the platform on which they were elected to the All Progressives Congress (APC) at a time there was no crisis in their party is still a contentious issue. That they backtracked after realising the folly in their action does not detract from the fact that they openly and formally announced their change of allegiance.

What happens if the pro-Wike group decides to impeach Gov Fubara as they are already threatening to do having already given the governor a 48-hour deadline to re-present the 2025 budget to them and afterwards the high court rules that they lost their seat at the point of defection as stipulated in the Electoral Law as amended?

In contentiously ruling that there was “flagrant disobedience to court orders” by Fubara on his perception and handling of the Wike 27, I thought appealing the high court judgment was valid until it gets to the apex court whose judgment is final as has now happened.
And if “flagrant disobedience to court orders” as the court labelled Fubara’s action on a suit that is still subject to appeal earned a subregional government a unilateral suspension of release of statutory allocations from the Federation Accounts and Allocation Committee (FAAC), what happens when the Federal Government which is a serial and willful defiant of court judgments not beneficial to it irrespective of the government in power, is deemed to have defined the court?
The Supreme Court held that Fubara’s treatment of the Wike 27 was “an act of brigandage and dictatorship” aimed at preventing the House from performing its legitimate functions under the speakership of Amaewhule. It is instructive that the court held the duties of the legislators so high that it deemed the governor’s action as brigandage and dictatorship. Apart from ensuring that the lawmakers function effectively, Fubara has the greater task of governing the state, paying civil servants’ salaries and delivering services to the people. By denying the state access to its statutory allocations, is the judgment of the learned justices any less dictatorial and and an act of brigandage?

The court’s judgment takes the country to uncharted territory. By the decision it took to withhold a state’s allocations, the court practically declared a federating unit as no longer part of the federation that should govern its people and provide requisite services. Was it strict legalese that informed the judgment of the Supreme Court or was it driven by politics?

From the moment he lost unquestionable control of his successor, Wike did not disguise his determination to oust Fubara. Having failed to get him impeached by his loyalists in the state House of Assembly, Wike resorted to every unorthodox means to get Fubara out. With an Aso Rock intent on “capturing” rather than winning elections in some state classified as key that had eluded the ruling party, it was all too willing to provide logistics and every support Wike needed to carry out his game plan. A judiciary facing credibility crisis against the backdrop of questionable judgments has only succeeded in taking the country to the brink.

Fubara is the first Ijaw man to be governor of Rivers State. To his people, there is a legion of unusual rulings made by the apex court in a bid to dismantle the governor’s government.
Strangely, Justice Jamilu Tukur restored an another verdict of the Federal High Court in Abuja, which barred the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) from releasing voters register to the Rivers State Independent Electoral Commission for the conduct of the LG polls. It maintained that there was no evidence that INEC carried out a review of the voters register, at least 90 days before the election was held. The constitution has barred the running of local governments by unelected people, requiring that only an updated voters register should be released by INEC is a dubious ruling. Other states had earlier conducted their own LG elections using the same INEC register.

The carte blanche given Wike by the serial judgments in a crisis that is essentially politically engineered is reminiscent of what President Donald Trump is doing to Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky. The American leader did not disguise his loathing of Zelensky, preferring to pander to Russia’s Vladimir Putin. His decision to give all the aces to Putin even before negotiations begin has complicated the search for peace.

In its reaction Pan Niger Delta Forum ,(PANFEF) expressed worry that the people of Rivers State were the casualties of the judgment. More telling is the statement attributed to the president of Ijaw National Congress, Prof. Benjamin Okaba.
“If Gov. Fubara’s tenure is truncated by the Amaewhule-led Assembly or anybody else, the INC cannot guarantee the sustenance of the current peace in the Niger Delta, nor the continued rise in oil production”, the Ijaw leader has warned.
Even within the APC, it might not be all smooth sailing. Chief Eze Chukwuemeka Eze, a chieftain of the party, argued that the Supreme Court judgment reinstating the 27 defected lawmakers as valid members of the state House of Assembly was a clear declaration of war on the state, describing the ruling as not only a Black Friday in the country’s nascent democracy, but “declaration of war against Rivers State and death of judiciary in Nigeria”.

For the gloating Wike and his 27 loyalists, it might be premature. Fubara has been calm and clear-headed in his reaction, preferring to declare that he will abide by the Supreme Court judgment. But that much cannot be said of other stakeholders in Rivers State.