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• Demands $10m punitive exemplary damage
From Godwin Tsa, Abuja
The Ijaw Youth Council (IYC) has dragged the Federal Government before the ECOWAS Community Court of Justice over the declaration of State of Emergency in Rivers State.
In the application dated March 20, received same day by the court and marked ECW/CCJ/APP/18/25, Comrade Ibiso and 11 others on behalf of the Eastern wing of the IYC, are seeking a court order setting aside and/or quashing the suspension of elected officials and removal of the democratic structures and institutions in Rivers State as an imperative for the enthronement of a full-fledged democratic order.
A constitutional lawyer, Chief Festus Ogwuche, and others deposed to the affidavit in the suit. Meanwhile, the court is yet to fix a date for hearing in the matter.
The applicants prayed for an order of court setting aside all decisions, actions, policies and directives given or issued by the Sole Administrator appointed by the defendant’s President on March 18.
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In the application brought pursuant to Articles III and IV of the supplementary protocol amending ECOWAS Court’s protocol; Article II of the Protocol of the court and Article 33 of the Rules of the court, the applicants averred that the respondent’s President (President Bola Ahmed Tinubu), elected into political office, lacked the powers to remove or suspend the governor of a state, who was also elected into the office.
They held that by removing the governor, Siminalayi Fubara, his deputy, Ngozi Odu and members of Rivers State House of Assembly, fundamental rights of the applicants and the people of Rivers State have been violated.
“By so doing, the defendant has unlawfully taken away the democratic rights of the applicants and that of the population of Rivers State both individually and collectively.”
They therefore insisted that the actions of the respondent’s President have not only drowned, diffused and collapsed the constitutional rights of the applicants and the people of the state in neo-junta governance but also put them into unconstitutional, undemocratic and arbitrary manner of governance which they cannot fit into.
“The implication therefore is that the applicants and the people of Rivers State have lost their existence and dignity as human beings, having been politically emasculated by the loss of the values that accompany democratic governance and deprived of leaders duly elected by them in the democratic space.”
