Rivers: We won’t back down on Fubara, deputy’s impeachment – Lawmakers

• Plot to remove gov thickens, as four pro-Fubara legislators make U-turn, back governor’s removal

From Tony John, Port Harcourt

Rivers State House of Assembly has vowed to proceed with the impeachment of Governor Siminalayi Fubara and his deputy, Professor Ngozi Odu.

This is even as the four members of the Assembly who had called for a political solution to address the face-off between the lawmakers and the governor have rescinded their earlier call and supported the impeachment move of Fubara and Odu.

The House on resumption of plenary on Friday, resolved to forward a request for the investigation of impeachment allegations against Governor Fubara and his deputy, Odu, to the State Chief Judge, Justice Simeon Chibuzor-Amadi, for the constitution of a seven-member investigative panel.

It passed a resolution requesting the state’s chief judge to investigate Fubara and his deputy, Odu, over allegations bordering on gross misconduct.

The decision was taken during plenary, with 26 lawmakers voting in favour of the motion to forward the matter to the chief judge for further probe, in line with Section 188 of the 1999 Constitution (as amended).

The allegations against the governor and his deputy, include budgetary impropriety, failure to present the 2026 Appropriation Bill to the Assembly, unauthorised expenditure of public funds, withholding of statutory allocations to the legislature, and other acts deemed to constitute gross misconduct.

Speaker of the House, Martin Amaewhule, who presided over the session, directed the Clerk of the House to formally write to the chief judge within the stipulated time to constitute a seven-member investigation panel to examine the allegations.

The development marks the next procedural step in the on-going impeachment proceedings initiated on January 8, when the Assembly served notices on Fubara and Odu.

Briefing journalists earlier, Deputy Speaker, Dumle Maol, accused the governor and his deputy of employing the social media to make a caricature of the House of Assembly and the lawmakers instead of looking for a way to resolve the constitutional infringements.

Maol said while the Assembly was soliciting the intervention of elders of the state, the governor used derogatory language against the Assembly.