Jonathan and Atiku on Rivers LG poll

 

The ongoing crisis in Rivers State is the perfect definition of imbroglio. 

The state’s political leaders, without exception, have managed to turn a perfectly simple political misunderstanding into a perfectly convoluted crisis. The problem is not helped by the state’s stakeholders’ lack of principles and elementary understanding of the issues they claim to be fighting over, including the democracy and the rule of law they have spoken relentlessly about. Two courts gave judgements on the local government elections before October 5 polling day, the Federal High Court sitting in Abuja, and a Rivers State High Court. The Rivers government and the state electoral commission headed by a retired judge chose which one to obey and speak about, while impugning the integrity of the Abuja judge.

If the Rivers imbroglio was replicated in any other state, it would be potent enough to give them migraine. But not Rivers. Gluttons for punishment, they conducted the election while defying all rules of elections, got and announced results whose statistical details did not form part of the results declaration, swore in the ‘winners’ while deprecating them with bucolic ‘monkey proverbs’, reframed the LG election narrative as indicative of courage, and, together with their kept media, described the poll as affording the state a new beginning. 

The perfect miasma? Not quite. In Rivers, it does not just rain, it pours. For a state that now specialises in abusing judges and police top brass as corrupt and incompetent, it must now contend with the Court of Appeal which last week declared in a judgement that Martins Amaewhule and his 26 state lawmakers, all said to belong to former governor Nyesom Wike’s camp, constitute the legitimate legislature before whom the 2024 budget should be represented. Governor Siminalayi Fubara, who is adept at boxing himself into a corner, had the option to comply and leave bad enough alone. 

He has opted to appeal the judgement, hoping to save the three lawmakers he has used to legitimise all his actions. What if the Supreme Court should endorse the judgement of the lower courts, would the governor go ahead and declare a republic?

Source: TheNation