Rivers crisis: Lawmakers pick holes in Fubara’s claims, open up on alleged impeachment moves, indefinite adjournment

The face-off between the Rivers State governor, Siminalayi Fubara and the members of the state House of Assembly took another dimension recently.
Since the Supreme Court judgment reinstated the lawmakers loyal to the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, Nyesom Wike, there have been a series of verbal clashes between the governor and the 27 lawmakers led by the Speaker, Martins Amaewhule.
In an exclusive interview with DAILY POST, the Chairman of the Rivers State House of Assembly Committee on Information, and spokesperson of the House, Hon Enemi George declared some claims by the governor as “untrue”.
The lawmaker made clarifications regarding the governor’s letter to the Assembly, the reported indefinite adjournment, alleged impeachment moves and other pressing issues.
Governor Fabara claimed that the Assembly is frustrating his efforts to represent the 2025 budget in compliance with the Supreme Court judgement. What is the issue?
We have been begging the governor to bring the budget and if he has not done that. The governor claimed he wrote to us and then tried to access the House of Assembly Quarters to present the budget and then we locked him outside, that is totally untrue. There was no time that the governor wrote to the House of Assembly as he claimed. He has been writing to the Assembly before, especially when he presented a supplementary budget and when he requested that we screen his commissioners.
It is a simple and straightforward process, nothing is different now. The first time, his aide said they sent a letter through Whatsapp. It is not done and even at that, there was no such thing. Now, we have been seeing his letter flying around the social media that he expressed his intentions to present the 2025 budget, there was no such thing. Apparently, the recipient of the letter is not us. It is obviously the public. He is using public sentiment. I have earlier challenged him to show us a copy of any letter he sent to the House of Assembly. He is just not being sincere. The governor is toiling with the lives of the Rivers people.
Immediately after the Supreme Court judgement, we wrote to him and said, please within 48 hours, present the budget. By our estimation, by the 15th of this month, we would have given the budget hearing so that by the 16th, we have passed it. So that within two weeks, we can do the back and forth with the federal government then the fund can be released and allocation can come in so that people can have salaries.
We have pensioners, including my mother who need their pensions. The governor owns us too so it is even in our best interest that the budget is passed. His ego and personal interest will not allow him. If the budget is not ready, then it means that what he presented to those three guys was just an empty box. He should have written to us and said “guys please give me some time let me work things out” and we know how to arrange that. The governor is not being sincere, he never wrote to us and there are none of his letters anywhere in the House of Assembly. We only hear it on social media.
Did the lawmakers lock the governor outside the Assembly complex as widely reported?
It is not true. Remember that the governor demolished the House of Assembly complex after burning our Hallowed Chamber; he demolished the entire complex with all our personal belongings inside. At that moment, we had to move to where we live. In our Quarters, we have a bouquet hall.
It is that bouquet that we have converted to the chamber. By law, if we move a motion, by the votes of the majority, we can choose to have plenary anywhere which we did and now are using the bouquet hall. Where the governor came to was the residence of the House of Assembly quarters, the bouquet hall is in the center of the residence. The center of the residence is where we have the bouquet hall.
Now, this is where the Assembly members live so the gate is always locked. You won’t be let in unless your name is dropped at the gate that some one is coming to visit. Remember that that is where members live now. If it is the offices, the case will be different. Where we are now is not a public space, so we don’t throw our gate open. If we are expecting a visitor, the person’s name has to be dropped at the gate, then we will be informed that so so person is coming. Then when the person comes, they let him in.
The governor just drove to the gate and stood there and then started making a press conference and in less than five minutes, he was gone. Even if we are still at the House of Assembly complex, the normal thing to do is to write to the Speaker expressing your intentions that you want to come and present the budget on so so day. If the day is not possible, we can say, “your Excellency, that day is not our sitting day. Even if we give the governor a date and he comes to the House of Assembly complex, a motion has to be moved to allow him into the chamber and that is our standing order.
We move a motion and get majority votes then we approve for him to enter. That is when it will be announced that the governor and his guests have now been allowed to enter. Before he leaves, a motion has to be moved. That is the procedure. You don’t just walk in like that. It is a ceremonial process.
The governor is just trying to use public sentiment by painting us in a bad light as if he really wants to come and present the budget but we are not letting him. He forgot that we were the first to write to him, asking him to come and present the budget. Our staff were sent to the government house but they were beaten up and chased away when the government officials heard that they came from the House of Assembly to deliver a letter.
Governor Fubara appointed his commissioners in 2024, why is the Assembly asking him to present a new list of commissioners?
Because the Supreme Court invalidated his commissioners. That was why we wrote to the governor and said, “look, let’s put our personal belongings behind us, from what it is right now, you have no commissioners, send us the list of the commissioners even if it is the same people you are working with, no problem”.
We asked him to just send the list to us so that we approve it to ensure that in the eyes of the law, Rivers State has commissioners. But what did he do, he rejected the letter and instructed the commissioners to go to court against us. Then the following day, we were made to understand that the commissioners had taken us to court. The governor instructed all government agencies not to receive any mail from us.
You invited the Chairman of the Rivers State Independent Electoral Commission, RSIEC, Hon. Justice Adolphus Enebeli. What was it for?
We invited the RISEC Chairman to come and tell us how he is planning for the election. The man refused to receive the letter acting on the governor’s instruction. How do we run as an Assembly or we can’t communicate with the executive?
Why did the House ask the Department of State Services, DSS, to investigate the Chief Judge of the State over alleged falsification of age when the assembly has not even made any investigation on the matter?
When we got the petition to investigate the Chief Judge, the only thing we could do was to write to a federal agency that has the power to investigate him since we would not be allowed to investigate him. If you invite them, they will not come. They have been instructed not to receive any letter from us, so we said okay, since we can’t do the investigation, let’s hand it over to a federal agency, maybe they will honour the invitation of the agency.
What was the reason for the indefinite adjournment when the House and the executive should be working to resolve issues?
The impression that is being created about our adjournment is not correct. Normally, when we are adjourning, we say Mr Speaker, I move for the plenary to be adjourned to Thursday or Friday. But in a time when maybe we have something to attend to, maybe an event and we are not sure of when we will be able to come back or maybe our generator is bad and we don’t know how long it will take to be fixed or we have a leaking roof or one problem that we are solving and we don’t know when we are coming back, we then say we adjourn sine die.
It is the same adjustment but sine die means that we are not sure of the exact date. We are not specific. We can come back tomorrow, it can be tomorrow and it can be next week so it doesn’t mean an indefinite adjournment. People are just giving wrong interpretations.
If the Speaker directs that we should resume tomorrow and the Clerk communicates to us, we will be there tomorrow.
There are reports that members of the Assembly have concluded plans to impeach the governor. How true is this?
That kind of discussion has not been tabled. Impeachment doesn’t just fall from the sky. A member of the House has to move a motion maybe after an investigation and the governor is found guilty, that is when the issue of impeachment will now come in. Nobody has discussed that in the House before and no member can just stand up and say he wants to impeach the governor today or tomorrow. It doesn’t happen like that.
Impeachment has not been tabled, nobody has discussed that kind of thing in the House. We thought that by now, we would have moved pass all these crisis. No matter how all of us want to pretend, our state is not moving forward. We are at the stand still. Nobody is happy that we are where we are. It doesn’t have to be me or the governor. Right now, everybody has to shelve his personal interest and carry the collective interest of the state. 2027 is still far. We haven’t even delivered the reason we were voted for by our people and here we are playing 2027 politics.
How much is the state government owning the Assembly members since the crisis started in 2024?
The governor has withheld our one-year, six-month allowances, and when I say allowances, I’m not talking about allowances meant for Assembly members alone. It is the entire institution. We have almost 200 staff and aside from that, we have to buy diesel, pay for this and that. All of these allowances were withheld until the moment that I’m speaking to you.
Rivers crisis: Lawmakers pick holes in Fubara’s claims, open up on alleged impeachment moves, indefinite adjournment