The Administrator of Rivers State, Vice Admiral Ibok-Ete Ibas, has come under fire over his appointment of local government administrators in the state despite a court order restraining him from doing so.
Legal practitioners, the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), and activist groups condemned the action of the Rivers Administrator, with the PDP also accusing the National Assembly of abdicating its oversight role over the administrator.
Lawyers who spoke with the Nigerian Tribune on the development described the appointment of the 23 local administrators as “illegal, null, and void.”
According to them, the action of the administrator—taken less than 24 hours after a Port Harcourt High Court order stopped him—amounts to disobedience of a court order.
A former chairman of the Garki branch of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Obioma Ezenwobodo, said Ibas has no power under the Constitution to appoint administrators for the councils.
Ezenwobodo, who is also the Executive Director of the Policy and Legislative Advocacy Network (PLAN), said everything concerning the administration of the sole administrator in Rivers is illegal, as there is nowhere in the Constitution that provides for a sole administrator for a state.
According to the lawyer, the Supreme Court has given a decision that the affairs and administration of local government areas should and must be done by elected council chairmen and officials.
“His (Ibas’) power is illegally donated, and he doesn’t have the power to donate another power to another entity. Ibas is a delegate that cannot delegate; so his appointment or attempted appointment of LGA administrators in Rivers State is illegal, unjustified, null, and void,” he said.
Another lawyer and human rights advocate, Oghenejabor Ikimi, described Ibas’ appointments as the mother of all illegalities.
Reacting exclusively to the Nigerian Tribune in Warri, Ikimi, who is the National Coordinator of the Centre for the Vulnerable and the Underprivileged (CENTREP), said the development completed the plot that upstaged the democratic structure in the state, which began weeks ago.
“In the first place, the president does not have the power to appoint him as a sole administrator because there’s nowhere in the Constitution that allows the president to remove an elected governor and replace him with a sole administrator. Likewise, the administrator does not have the power to appoint sole administrators to man the local government areas. This is the mother of all illegalities. It’s now very clear that what happened in Rivers State was a plot,” he retorted.
The Coalition of United Political Parties (CUPP) also strongly condemned the appointments.
CUPP spokesperson, Comrade Mark Adebayo, made this condemnation in a chat with our correspondent, saying that the administrator acted like the typical dictator that he is and carried out the hatchet job he was appointed to do in Rivers State.
“The administrator is acting like the typical dictator that he is and carrying out the hatchet job that he was appointed to do in Rivers State,” the CUPP spokesperson said.
Also, an Ondo State lawyer and activist, Tope Temokun, faulted the appointments.
Temokun, while speaking with the Nigerian Tribune, said with the new development, Ibas has commenced the dismantling process of the government institutions in the state.
He said what they are practising in Rivers State is illegal, unconstitutional, and should be discouraged.
A Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Yinka Kotoye, in his submission, also said it is not within the power of the Rivers administrator to appoint local government sole administrators, adding that there is nothing in the Constitution empowering him to do so.
Speaking with the Nigerian Tribune via telephone, a prominent member of the Rivers Elders Forum and one-time spokesman of the Pan-Niger Delta Forum, Chief Anabs Sara-Igbe, said the appointment is null and void.
He said, “If you are coming here for six months, why are you dismantling the structures of the governor that is still there? It’s just because the governor is a peaceful governor. Now you are dismantling his structure that was constitutionally constituted.”
An APC chieftain, Eze Chukwuemeka Eze, described the action of the sole administrator as the height of impunity and a coordinated total takeover of governance in Rivers State.
“By appointing the chairman of RSIEC to conduct Rivers State local government election, it simply exposes why the state of emergency was declared by Tinubu — just to take over political structures in Rivers State,” Eze said.
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), in its reaction, criticised the National Assembly for allegedly abandoning its constitutional oversight role over the Rivers sole administrator.
Speaking to the Nigerian Tribune, the South-South Zonal Caretaker Chairman of the party, Emmanuel Ogidi, accused Ibas of “flaunting illegality” and warned that the development signals a complete breakdown of democratic norms in Rivers State.
The party said that legislative oversight had all but disappeared.
Ogidi said the latest appointments of unelected local government sole administrators by Ibas are unlawful, and lamented what he described as the National Assembly’s silence in the face of such “brazen violation” of the rule of law.
A chieftain of the All Progressives Congress, Chekwas Okorie, said the dissolution of the local government council chairmen in Rivers State and the appointment of administrators for the councils by Vice Admiral Ibas should take no one by surprise.
Speaking with the Nigerian Tribune via telephone, Okorie noted that President Bola Tinubu had usurped the power of the National Assembly to oversee the affairs of Rivers State.
He said, “The president gave the signal when he appointed him Sole Administrator and removed the legislative powers from the National Assembly.”
