Fubara should never be impeach, PDP advises APC.
The PDP claimed that the APC’s decision for impeachment reveals the party’s heinous desperation to seize control of the oil-rich South-South state.
All Progressives Congress (APC) has been requested by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to do away with any plans to impeach Rivers State Governor Siminalayi Fubara.
Responding to Tony Okocha, the APC Chairman in Rivers State, ordering the members of the state House of Assembly to start the impeachment process against Fubara, PDP National Publicity Secretary Debo Ologunagba made a statement on Wednesday.
Okocha had warned party discipline on the Assembly members if they did not resume the impeachment process against the governor.
But Ologunagba remarked, “Such remarks by Okocha exposed the vile desperation of the APC to forcefully take over the oil-rich South-South state.”
The APC chairman is being ordered by lawmakers who are not legally members of the Rivers State House of Assembly, according to the PDP, and therefore cannot legally consider or utilise such powers.
The party called for the governor’s impeachment a blatant call for anarchy since it is an attempt to impose a democratic order.
See the whole statement below:
“The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) leadership has been alerted to a delusional statement made by Mr. Tony Okocha, the chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Rivers State, in which he issued a hallucinatory directive that an impeachment procedure be started against Siminalayi Fubara, the democratically elected governor of Rivers State.
“The APC, which is overwhelmingly rejected in Rivers State, is vilely desperate to use violence, coercion, and bullying to undermine the WILL of the people and forcefully take over the State. Such reckless and unwarranted statement by the APC Chairman in Rivers State exposes this.
“The level of arrogance and contempt for the people of Rivers State is shown by the fact that the Rivers State APC Chairman, in his deranged imagination, believes he can direct an impeachment procedure against a duly elected State Governor. It also further confirms APC’s desperation to forcefully annex their democratic rights under the Constitution.
“In any case, the persons the Rivers State APC Chairman instructed to start impeachment procedures against Governor Fubara are not legally members of the Rivers State House of Assembly and are not permitted by law to consider or employ such powers.
“These persons, having defected from the PDP, the political party platform on which they were elected into the Rivers State House of Assembly, have since vacated and lost their seats, rights, privileges, recognition and obligations accruable to members of the Rivers State House of Assembly by virtue of Section 109 (1) (g) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (as amended).
“A member of a House of Assembly shall vacate his seat in the House if… (g) being a person whose election to the House of Assembly was sponsored by a political Party, he becomes a member of another political party before the expiration of the period for which that House was elected,” states Section 109 (1) (g) of the 1999 Constitution.
It should be mentioned that Section 109 (1) (g) of the Constitution is self-executing. This clause means that the members of the Rivers State House of Assembly who defected have forfeited their seats as a result.
“The illegal instruction from the Rivers State APC Chairman to these people to start an impeachment procedure against the Governor is therefore a blatant call for anarchy as it amounts to an attempt to forcefully overthrow a democratic Order in clear violation of Section 1 sub-section 2 of the 1999 Constitution (as amended).
The Federal Republic of Nigeria shall not be governed, nor shall any person or group of persons take control of the government of Nigeria or any part thereof, except in accordance with the provisions of this Constitution, as stated in Section 1 Sub-section 2 of the 1999 Constitution (as amended).
The PDP alerts the Inspector General of Police to the dissident remarks made by the APC Chairman in Rivers State, which have the potential to cause a crisis and undermine the democratic order in the nation.
The APC has to give up the idea of occupying Rivers State militarily since doing so is a direct attack on the people’s sensibilities and will be fiercely opposed.
The people of Rivers State are not prepared to entrust their future to a dishonest, repressive, and anti-people Special Purpose Vehicle like the APC, and the APC Chairman in that state should accept this.
“The people of Rivers State are appreciated by the national leadership of the PDP for always standing with the PDP and are urged to continue resisting the APC in its vicious attempt to inject violence and destabilise the State.”