It was reported yesterday that the governor of Rivers State, Mr Sim Fubara, ordered the demolition of the Rivers State House of Assembly complex in order to distort the parliamentary session so that the defected House of Assembly members loyal to Mr Nyesom Wike will not carry out their impeachment ploy against him.
As a person who has keenly been following Nigerian politics, I can take a wild guess that the reason why the River state governor has to rave down the state house of assembly complex contrary to whatever you may think is that according to Supreme Court rulings in 2007, in the case of Inakoju V Adeleke, if the assembly members meet in any other place other than the house of assembly complex and impeach the governor, the purported impeachment or whatever business conducted will be voided on the grounds that it didn’t meet up the constitutional procedure of impeachment of the governor as provided in section 188 of the constitution of the federal republic of Nigeria and the House of Assembly rules.
In the infamous constitutional landmark case of Hon. Muyiwa Inakoju & 17 Ors v Hon Abraham Adeolu Adeleke & 3 Ors (2007), 4 NWLR (PT. 1025), the Supreme Court upheld Chief Wole Olanipekun’s argument that the House of Assembly complex is the one and only designated building that the official business of the house of assembly members is to be carried out and that D’Rovans Hotel, Ibadan where some of the assembly members held their plenary session and impeached the governor is not the House of Assembly of Oyo State, thereby invalidating the impeachment of the then Governor Rasheed Ladoja.
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Here is the full fact of the case;
On the 13th of December 2005, some members of the Oyo State House of Assembly held their plenary session at D’Rovans Hotel, Ring Road, Ibadan, where they purportedly suspended the Draft Rules of the Oyo State House of Assembly. They also purportedly issued a notice of allegation of misconduct against Senator Rasheed Ladoja, the then Governor, with the purpose of commencing impeachment proceedings against him. On 22nd December 2005, without following the laid down rules, regulations and the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, they purportedly passed a motion calling for the investigation of the allegations of misconduct against Senator Ladoja and they went ahead and passed a vote of no confidence on the governor and impeached him.
The Supreme Court voided the impeachment of the governor on the grounds that the parliamentarians did not follow the right impeachment procedure by meeting up the quorum and conducting the plenary session on the designated House of Assembly complex.
Therefore, one can decipher the political game that Governor Fubara is playing by demolishing the House of Assembly complex so that if the parliamentarians who are loyal to Mr Wike succeed in impeaching him, he can easily contest the impeachment in court on one of the grounds that the impeachment was carried out on another ground other than the state house of Assembly complex thereby invalidating the process.