FUBARA VS AMEWHULE (1) – Sadiq Ibrahim Dasin

FUBARA VS AMEWHULE – 1

Now that we are fully back from the Ramadan break, I will, as usual, continue to look at contentious court cases for us in this beautiful arena called Facebook and subsequently look at the politics of the law in the cases as well. We are learning from each other.

We shall therefore start by looking at the of Sen. Natasha and Sen. Akpabio and the Fubara vs Amaewhule case in which Wike’ name was conspicuously absent though we all know that he is involved.

This Supreme Court Fubara case we are looking at today was an appeal by Speaker Amaewhule and 27 members of the Rivers state House of Assembly to the Supreme Court against the Judgement of the Court of Appeal.

The appeal by Amaewhule and the 27 members who were allegedly said to have defected from PDP to the APC contained an application to the apex court for a declaration and injunction against –

• Rivers State Governor Fubara
• Rivers State Government
• Rivers SIEC and its Chairman
• CBN, Zenith and Access Bank,
• Accountant General of the Fedn
• Accountant General of Rivers St.
• Chief Judge of Rivers State

In the case, Speaker and the Assembly had asked the Supreme Court to bar the CBN from releasing funds to the Rivers state government and also to preclude everybody else in this case from applying for or withdrawing any monies/funds belonging to the state government unless and until Governor Fubara presents a budget or appropriation bill to the House of Assembly under the leadership of Amaewhule.

As there were several parties to the case, there were equally several cases filed in this politico-legal logjam in Rivers state that breaking the case down for non lawyers would take several days. This is why I tried here to bring out the most important decisions of the Supreme Court in the case.

In doing so I am not unmindful of 3 things that I came to know from my training and experience. There are –

a) in these days of politics, where decision of the Supreme Court ends is where political arguments starts. Therefore now that the case has effectively been legally concluded, political commentators may castigate the Supreme Court in the social media, which is fine in democracy.

b) it is a fact that people have lost considerable amount of confidence in the judiciary and of course in the Supreme Court. However, I also know as a fact that no matter how wrong it may be, the decision of the must be obeyed. As is very well known, the Supreme Court is not infallible though it is final.

c) flowing from b) above, I was taught in the primary school, that if one is known to be fond of telling lies, even if he tells the truth, people would not believe him. Meaning even if the Supreme Court did justice in this case, as I believe they did, many people would not believe it.

Therefore as we commence the review of this particular case today, I can comfortably say that even though I don’t like Wike’s politics, and of course Wike’s soiled fingers are everywhere in this case even without finger print evidence, Governor Fubara has actually scored an own goal.

Having read the 62 page judgement of this case, I have come to the inevitable conclusion that the Supreme Court has rightly ruled in this case, Fubara was indeed wrong. My conclusion is based on 3 most important of Fubara’s grounds of appeal to the Supreme Court and the court’s ruling on each of them that –

1. the 27 members of the Rivers State House of Assembly who Fubara said have defected, are still indeed legitimate members of the Rivers State House of Assembly till date. They have legally not defected. I agree with this.

2. the argument that the State High Court has jurisdiction to entertain or determine whether the seats of the 27 members of the House of Assembly have become vacant, is a wrong argument by Fubara’s lawyers. The state High Court to which Fubara went to, to have the seats of the members declared vacant, is the wrong court. It’s judgement against the 27 members of the state House of Assembly is wrong, unconstitutional, null, void and of no effect whatsoever.

3. Fubara’s contention that the Court of Appeal ought to have invoked the doctrine of necessity to regard Rivers State House of Assembly as properly constituted by 4 members in the circumstance of this case and therefore should treat the budget or Appropration Bill he presented before 4 out of 31 members of the Assembly as valid for him to ran the state with monies so appropriated by the 4 members, is a false argument. It cannot stand in law.

In our subsequent discussions on this case, we shall look at law backing the Supreme Court’s judgement one by one.