Dissolution of institutions in Rivers State, which the new Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) administration considers lacking in propriety or needs repositioning, has come under protest by supporters of the All Progressives Congress (APC).
In an ironic role reversal, Governor Neysom Wike has firmly wielded the broom to sweep clean some institutions created or nurtured by his predecessor, Rotimi Amaechi, an APC man.
All the 435 staff of the Rivers State Polytechnic (RSP) disengaged on Monday, June 15 have appealed to members of the public to prevail on Governor Nyesom Wike to give them back their jobs.
A raft of board dissolutions
Last week alone, Wike disbanded the Rivers State Road Traffic Management Agency (TIMARV) and the governing councils of RSP, Rivers State University of Science and Technology (RSUST), Ignatius Ajuru University (IAU), Rivers State College of Arts and Science (RSCAS), and School of Nursing and Midwifery (SNM).
The government has also in the past four weeks received the approval of the legislature to dissolve the board of the Greater Port Harcourt City (GPHC), the Judicial Service Commission (JSC), and Rivers Independent Electoral Commission (RSIEC).
The process of employing the disengaged academic and non academic RSP staff started in 2013 when the vacancies were published by the Amaechi administration but they were only given appointment letters in April 2015.
This raised questions as to whether the employment of such a number of staff in a single institution a month to the end of the administration was not a political booby trap.
Three of the academic staff fired – Jekey Lekue, Basil Ujobolo, and Grace Ikue – said their disengagement negated Wike’s inaugural policy pronouncement that he would give hope to the people.
”All processes were painstakingly exhausted before we were finally employed and we supervised the last examination in the school this June before our termination came up on Monday, June 15, 2015.
“We are calling on well meaning Rivers people to do justice to this issue. We beg Rivers people to step in. Wike gave the state hope on May 29. We have already been captured in the data base of the state. Our governor should not do this to us,” they pleaded.
Rivers cite irregularities
But Wike’s Media and Publicity Adviser, Opunabo Inko-Taria, explained that ”the sack was premised on irregularities. So many procedural obligations were breached and, as a result, the exercise was deprived of due process.
”The Rector, Dr Obiando Amadi’s case was that of official misconduct and that is why he was asked to proceed on compulsory leave. We should get it clear; he was not sacked but asked to go on compulsory leave pending the outcome of an investigation on the alleged misconduct.”
On TIMARIV, Opunabo said: ”Many of those guys were making illegal and embarrassing seizure of vehicles on the roads and this is becoming an eyesore.
”Let us leave politics aside; it is a known fact all over the state that TIMARIV had constituted itself into a public nuisance. The action of its staff had, in most cases, brought River State into disrepute.
“What they do in most cases is illegal. They are not supposed to struggle for the steering with the driver of a vehicle but this is what they often do.
”The state government can no longer cope with the excesses of this TIMARIV staff. It was on that premises that the governor decided that it should be disbanded and it was on this basis that [he] has instructed that nobody should pay a kobo to TIMARIV.
“If anybody should be refused or deprived of the retrieval of his/her vehicle, such a person should report to the nearest police station and the staff in question will be dealt with.”
Trouble ahead, ALGON warns
In the last council poll conducted by RSIEC, all the chairmanship posts were won by members of the APC.
The GPHC board was reconstituted with Desmond Akawor replacing Aleruchi Cookey-Gam as Chairman, and Ferdinand Anabraba becoming new Secretary.
The State House of Assembly queried RSIEC staff last week and the atmosphere in the APC and the councils became charged and apprehensive.
A peaceful protest was staged at the Assembly complex, where APC council chairmen warned of dire consequences if councils were dissolved.
Over 1,000 youths joined the protest against what they saw as an attempt to unlawfully remove council chairmen from office.
Some of their placards read: “Rule of law is the beauty of democracy”, “We shall resist you with every legal means at our disposal”, “Dissolution of LGA is detrimental”, “PDP, leave elected LG chairmen alone”, “Wike wants to destroy our local councils and Rivers State is falling fast under Wike”.
The protesters were tear-gassed by armed police men. But they stood their ground.
The council chairmen under the aegis of the Rivers chapter of the Association of Local Government of Nigeria (ALGON) had earlier raised the alarm that dissolution of councils would plunge the state into further conflict.
State ALGON Legal Adviser, Sogbeye Eli, who is also Degema Council Chairman, reiterated on behalf of all the 23 council chairmen that they were duly and constitutionally elected and neither Wike nor the Assembly has the right to terminate their tenure.
He said ALGON’s statement was expedient because of the trouble the dissolution would cause and vowed that the association would resist it. “It is important the nation is put on red alert. If we are going to die, let us die.”
Eli described the dissolution of the JSC and RSIEC as “political vendetta”.
He advised the government to respect court processes and concentrate on development projects, stressing that Rivers needs peace.
“If the government is responsible, it should respect the courts. As they were elected, so, also, we were elected.”
APC cites contempt of court
The APC alleged that the Assembly plans to begin dismantling elected councils by adopting a motion empowering Wike to dissolve them.
State APC Publicity Secretary, Chris Finebone, said in a statement that the party has evidence of a list of members of care-taker committees that will replace the 23 elected councils.
He warned that the action would be illegal and therefore a threat to peace, law and order.
Such an action, he argued, would be in contempt of subsisting matters before the Port Harcourt Federal High Court and the Court of Appeal.
