Rivers govt explains N800bn 2024 budget appeal case withdrawal at Supreme Court
Ben Eguzozie
Similayi Fubara, governor, Rivers State
River State government, still beleaguered by unending litigation from largely exogenous political tiff between incumbent governor, Similayi Fubara and his godfather Nyesom Wike (minister of Federal Capital Territory), has given reasons why it withdrew its appeal case at the Supreme Court over the 2024 state budget of N800 billion. It said because the budget had been spent as of 31st December 2024 fiscal year.
“The appeal is of no useful purpose. The only reasonable thing left to do (was) to withdraw the appeal and have it dismissed. The Supreme Court is a very busy court. It will be most unwise to belabour the Honourable Court with academic appeals without any practical or utilitarian value,” Warisenibo Joe Johnson, state commissioner for information and communications, explained to journalists in Port Harcourt.
Johnson said the Supreme Court did not dismiss the government’s appeal, but rather ruled on the appeal over the 2024 budget voluntarily withdrawn by Governor Fubara, because the 2024 budget cycle have ended, and no need wasting time discussing a budget that have been fully spent and implemented.
The government also dismissed wide claims that the apex court had upheld the state House of Assembly leadership led by Martin Amaewhule, whose seats had been vacant since early last year when he with 26 others resigned from their political party, the PDP, moving to APC.
“Rt. Hon. Victor Oko-Jumbo is still the authentic Speaker (of Rivers House of Assembly), and nothing can change that,” the information commissioner said.
Governor Fubara had appealed the October 2024 ruling of a three-member panel of the appellate court led by Joseph Oyewole, which dismissed an appeal that was lodged by the Governor, and upheld a judgement of the Federal High Court delivered on January 22, 2024, which nullified the 2024 Rivers budget, on the premise that it was not presented before members of the state Assembly that were known to the law.
According to the Appeal Court, Governor Fubara erred when he voluntarily withdrew a counter-affidavit he filed to challenge a legal action the Amaewhule-led lawmakers instituted to be recognised as valid members of the Rivers State House of Assembly. The court held that the Governor’s decision to present the 2024 Rivers State Appropriation Bill to only four out of 31 members of the Assembly amounted to a gross violation of section 91 of the 1999 Constitution, as amended, and an act of “executive recklessness.”
The Appeal Court held that the absence of any document from Gov. Fubara to contradict all the claims the Amaewhule-led lawmakers made in their suit meant that he (Gov Fubara) admitted all the facts they stated in the matter. It accused him of surreptitiously attempting to set aside orders of the trial court through the appeal, saying the mistake he made by withdrawing his counter-affidavit to the originating suit could not be redeemed by brilliant advocacy.
The Rivers State Assembly was fractionalised due to a coldhearted relationship between Governor Fubara and his predecessor and Minister of the FCT, Wike. In the heat of the political fracas, Governor Fubara sidelined the Amaewhule-led 26 members of the Assembly who are loyal to Wike, and had resigned their membership of the PDP, moved to APC. Hence, the governor presented the state’s N800 billion 2024 budget before the four lawmakers led by Edison Ehie, who had emerged as a factional Speaker of the Assembly. The Ehie-led faction had declared vacant the seats of the Amaewhule-led pro-Wike lawmakers for defecting to the APC, from the PDP. Ehie-led Assembly promptly passed the budget, with the governor quickly assenting to it.