Rivers crisis: Supreme Court reserves judgment in 4 appeals

The Supreme Court on Monday reserved judgment in four separate appeals on the raging political leadership tussles in Rivers.

Justice Uwani Aba-Aji, who led a five-member panel of justices reserved judgments to a date that would be communicated to parties, after taking arguments from lawyers involved in the matters.

The four appeals are the Rivers House of Assembly and others against the Rivers Government and nine others.

The second case is between the Rivers House of Assembly and others against Gov. Siminalayi Fubara and nine others.

The third case is between the Rivers House of Assembly and others against the Rivers State Independent Electoral Commission, RSIEC, and nine others.

The fourth matter is between the Rivers State House of Assembly and others against the Accountant General of Rivers and nine others.

The cases are in respect of some judgments delivered by the federal high court in Abuja which prohibited the release of monthly fund to Rives from the Federation Account and another that barred INEC from releasing voter register to the state government for the purpose of conducting local government election among others.

It will be recalled that Justice Joyce Abdulmalik of the federal high court in Abuja had ordered the stoppage of the release of allocations from the federal government to Rivers  until the governor presented the budget before the Martin Amaewhule-led House of Assembly members.

However, the Court of Appeal in Abuja  upturned the the judgment on  grounds of grave injustice in the findings and decisions.

Similarly, the Court of Appeal, in another judgment, upturned the judgment of Justice Peter Lifu, also of the Federal High Court, Abuja, which had ruled against the conduct of the Oct. 5, 2024, local government council election in Rivers on the grounds that due process of Rivers State laws on local government elections had not been followed.

At Monday’s sitting , Joseph Daudu SAN represented the camp loyal to the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory  FCT Nyesom Wike while Chris Uche SAN led the camp of  Fubara.