Opposition lawmakers kick against extension of Rivers council chairmen’s tenure

Opposition lawmakers in the House of Representatives, represented by the Coalition of United Political Parties, expressed their strong disapproval on Friday of the actions by certain lawmakers who defected from the Peoples Democratic Party to the All Progressives Congress in Rivers State.

These lawmakers allegedly extended the tenure of the 23 chairmen of local governments, whose tenure is set to end in a few weeks, which the opposition lawmakers view as an act of impunity.

CUPP Spokesman, Ikenga Ugochinyere, who spoke on behalf of the federal lawmakers at a press briefing in Abuja, condemned the plan by the embattled members of the River State House of Assembly to override Governor Siminalayi Fubara’s veto without sending the controversial bill to the governor for assent.

Ugochinyere, who described the passage of the controversial legislation as a recipe for chaos and lawlessness, added that the purported tenure elongation of the Rivers State Local Government Chairmen is “legislative rascality and a coup against democracy that is dead on arrival.”

This is just as he described the development as an “invitation to anarchy and an attempt to sabotage the presidential peace accord signed by the embattled lawmakers with legitimacy questions.”

He also called on the Chairman of Independent National Electoral Commission to immediately conduct bye-election for the replacement of the lawmakers who defected from the PDP to the APC in breach of the provisions of the Electoral Act and 1999 Constitution (as amended).

He said, “Assuming without conceding that the Rivers House of Assembly sent the law to the Governor, the Governor has 30 days within which to assent to the law or withhold his assent and it can only be at the expiration of the 30 days that the House of Assembly can adjudge that the Governor has withheld assent and not earlier.

“Illegally extending the tenure of Local Government Chairmen just a few weeks to the expiration of their tenure is an abuse of the legislative process that cannot be enforced. It is the height of legislative rascality and a coup against democracy that is dead on arrival.

“These Rivers Assembly men are truly acting like people who do not hold the sacred mandate of the people. Otherwise, they should have known that this plot is a deliberate invitation to anarchy and an inglorious attempt to sabotage the Presidential Peace Accord. We hereby call on the President to call them to order to avert the total breakdown of law and order in the State.”

He further noted that, “About two months ago, the same group of members with questionable mandate purported to have amended the same Local Government Law. Less than two months later, they are purporting to amend it again. They are now clearly playing Ping-Pong with Rivers State laws.”