The five lawmakers in the Rivers State House of Assembly, who are
opposed to Governor Rotimi Amaechi, on Monday, boycotted the sitting of the
Commission of Inquiry probing the crisis in the state.
The panel was established by the
state government to look into the cause of the fracas that occurred in the
chambers of the State House of Assembly.
During the panel’s sitting, counsel
for the Speaker of the House of Assembly, Mr. Ken Asuwete, and others,
representing the other 25 members of the state legislature, appealed to the
panel to grant them a 24-hour extension for them to prepare their documents.
Chairman of the Commission, Justice
Biobele Georgewill, adjourned sitting to Thursday, after granting the counsel
48 hours to put their documents in order.
Justice Georgewill appealed to
parties involved in the crisis to submit their memos to the commission and
maintained that the panel was only on a fact-finding mission.
He said, “No kobo needs to be paid to
file your memo. Just do it with the secretary of the commission. Even if you
don’t have a lawyer, the commission has a lawyer for you.
“This commission is for everybody
affected by the crisis and anybody, who has one thing or the other to tell us.
It is a fact-finding commission. We are not here to imprison anybody.”
One of the five anti-Amaechi
lawmakers, Mr. Victor Ihunwo, has however filed a suit in court to stop the
commission from carrying out its mission.
Ihunwo, who represents Port Harcourt
Constituency III in the House of Assembly, on Monday, approached a Rivers State
High Court, asking for an order to restrain the panel from investigating the
crisis in the state Assembly.
The lawmaker argued that Amaechi was
a party in the crisis the panel had been commissioned to investigate.
The lawmaker in his papers said,
“That His Excellency, Rotimi Amaechi, the 10th respondent and his government
represented by the 11th respondent, instigated the crisis and supervised the
execution of said crisis, which he now purports to inquire into by the
instrumentality of a Commission of Inquiry selected, appointed and inaugurated
by him, that is, the so-called judicial commission of inquiry comprised the 1st
set of respondents.
“An order of injunction restraining
the 2nd set of respondents from receiving any report from the 1st set of
respondents, or in any manner whatsoever implementing or putting into use any
report, findings or opinion tendered by or submitted by the 1st set of
respondents in their capacity as a Judicial Commission of inquiry or under any
guise whatsoever.”
The presiding judge, Justice Iyayi
Lamikanra, fixed Friday for ruling on the matter.
Tags
Politics