Rivers Crisis: Court dismisses suit seeking to restrain Fubara from presenting fresh budget

A State High Court in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, has dismissed a suit seeking to restrain Governor Siminalayi Fubara from presenting a fresh 2024 budget to the Rivers House of Assembly.

Governor Fubara had, amidst the political crisis in the state, signed into law the N800 billion 2024 budget after he presented it to a four-member assembly loyal to him.

But President Bola Tinubu, in an effort to end the crisis, brokered a controversial peace deal between the two main actors in the crisis, Governor Fubara and his predecessor, Nyesom Wike, who is now the FCT minister.

Going by the peace deal, Mr Fubara is to re-present the 2024 budget, and forward names of Pro-Wike commissioners who resigned from the State Executive Council to the assembly for consideration and approval.

But a group in the state, Rivers Elders, who had described the peace deal as a violation of the constitution, last week asked the court to invalidate it and restrain Governor Fubara from presenting a fresh budget and forwarding names of the resigned commissioners to the state assembly.

The assembly is led by Mr Wike-backed lawmakers, whom the elders argued had lost their seats after their defection to the APC.

Claimants in the suit, on behalf of Rivers elders, include Victor Jumbo, Bennett Birabi, Andrew Uchendu, Anabs Sara-Igbe, Ann Kio-Briggs and Emmanuel Deinma.

When the suit came up for hearing on Tuesday, the judge, Chiwendu Nworgu, turned down the hearing on a motion for a substitute service to some parties but instead delivered a ruling, declining jurisdiction to entertain the suit, Punch newspaper reported.

Citing the earlier ruling by Justice James Omotosho of a Federal High Court in Abuja which nullified the decisions taken by the four-member assembly, Justice Nworgu struck out the suit.

Disappointment

One of the claimants’ lawyers, Emmanuel Rukari, expressed disappointment over the judge’s decision, according to the Punch report.

He said “If you ask me as a lawyer from My Lord’s ruling, it will seem that he has delved into matters for which parties have not fully been served.

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“All we came to court to do this morning is to ask for an ex parte order for substituted service because most of the parties have been served, some others we haven’t been able to serve them.

“That is why we came to court for an ex parte application to enable us to serve the remaining parties, only for him (judge) to delve into the jurisdiction where nobody on the other side had come in to oppose or to challenge his jurisdiction.

“He has also gone ahead to cite the case of Omotosho which was delivered within the week. I don’t know if there is a Certified True Copy to that effect which he looked into because we spent over an hour waiting for his ruling when he excused himself and went in.

“So it is likely that he may have called every Tom, Dick and Harry to help out with what to say. It is rather embarrassing I will say that we have gotten ourselves to this level where the judiciary is no longer the hope for the common man.”

The lawyer promised to brief his clients on the court decision after which he will take “appropriate steps to further the course of justice”.