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Amid the controversy trailing the intervention of President Bola Tinubu in the crisis rocking Rivers State, human rights lawyer, Femi Falana, has said that the President cannot reinstate 27 cross carpeting members of the Rivers State House of Assembly.
In a statement on Tuesday, Falana, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), said that presidential interventions must always be grounded in the provisions of the constitution.
“With respect, the presidential reinstatement of the 27 cross carpeting members of the Rivers State House of Assembly by the Presidency is alien to the Constitution in every material particular,” Falana said.
Rivers State has been a theatre of the absurd in the last three months with the state House of Assembly serving as the “boxing ring”. The rift between Governor Siminalayi Fubara and his predecessor, Nyesom Wike, split lawmakers in the House with 27 of them decamping from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), a party in whose central government Wike currently serves as minister.
The feud also saw the emergence of parallel sittings, an impeachment plot against the governor, the demolition of the Assembly complex, and a gale of resignations of pro-Wike commissioners in Fubara’s cabinet.
The President had on Monday met with Fubara and Wike at the Aso Villa in Abuja.
After Monday’s meeting, the President directed that the warring parties withdraw all matters instituted in the courts by Fubara, and his team, and that the leadership of Martin Amaewhule in the Rivers State House of Assembly be recognised, and not that of Edison Ehie.
Amaewhule and his 26 allies were also said to have been reinstated in the House following the presidential directive.
However, Falana said, “The seats of the cross carpeting members have been declared vacant by the Speaker known to law. To that extent, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) is mandatorily required to conduct the by-election once the ex parte order issued by the Federal High Court last Friday is quashed.”
The senior lawyer said the cross carpeting legislator can only retain their seats if they can prove that the political party that sponsored them is divided into two or more factions.
