Seven Days Have passed between last Thursday and today that the Rivers State House of Assembly adopted a motion to initiate impeachment proceedings against Governor Siminalayi Fubara. According to the 1999 Constitution (as amended), the impeachment notice must be served within seven days.
Speaker Martin Amaewhule promised to ensure that it was served within the stipulated time. The assembly later claimed that it had served the governor the notice. When was it served? Who acknowledged receipt of the notice? What time was it served? The answers to these posers are not in public domain.
This first hurdle is critical to any planned impeachment. It must be followed strictly in order to give the governor fair hearing as enshrined in Section 36 of the Constitution. If at any point in time, it emerges that he was not granted fair hearing, the exercise will be rendered a nullity. So, for both parties the time element is essential. When do we start counting the time in this instant case? If we start from the day of the assembly’s special plenary where the decision was taking, seven days have passed.
Meaning that the governor is left with seven days to respond to the allegations of gross misconduct against him and his deputy, Prof Ngozi Odu. It must also be stated that it is also within his right not to reply, but that would not be a wise thing to do. Why? This is because whether or not he responds, the assembly is constitutionally empowered to go on with the exercise. He can also not say that he was not served.
The office of governor is one and it is staffed by people expected to receive such communication on his behalf. Things should not be complicated for the governor by those who are now saying that he was not served the impeachment notice. Are those in the governor’s office saying the document was not delivered there and received by them? The governor is not expected to, and should not, receive correspondence personally by virtue of his office.
Impeachment is serious business, and nobody knows this more than the governor himself. You cannot evade the service of an impeachment notice. Those thinking the governor can do that by saying that he was not served, and as such ignore the notice, should perish the thought. That is a dangerous path to tread. The governor, and not those people, is at the receiving end and they should not worsen things for him. For the sake of emphasis, this is what Section 188 (3) of the Constitution say:
Within fourteen days of the presentation of the notice to the Speaker of the House of Assembly (whether or not any statement was made by the holder of the office in reply to the allegation contained in the notice), the House of Assembly shall resolve by motion, without any debate whether or not the allegation shall be investigated. That Fubara was not around when the notice was served is not sufficient ground to vitiate the process. Wherever a governor is in the world when such katakata bursts, they are expected to rush back home to douse the fire.
Fubara can still save the situation, even though the assembly has vowed not to spare him this time around. Upon his return to office following the lapse of the six-month state of emergency in Rivers, he should have courted the lawmakers rather than continue to antagonise them. Politics is about give and take. The more reason he should have done this is hecause he knows their loyalty lies elsewhere. Who says he cannot woo them to his side, if he plays his politics right?
We have seen such happen elsewhere before. But to get them, he has to play their politics and talk to them in the language they understand. He must have heard about the anecdote of ‘people talk to people, people understand’ in political circles. If he has chosen to remain a minority and be in the shadow of those he should lead as their governor then he is not a politician. No political godson can unseat his godfather that way. Wooing the lawmakers would cost him nothing, but treating them as a pariah may be the beginning of the end.
He may have the President’s ears, but he must understand the political terrain well to continue to enjoy this privilege. Saying that the President asked him to join APC, or brandishing a membership card bearing ‘001’ does not confer automatic leadership right or an assurance of a second term ticket on an incumbent who acts out of turn. Are there anything to the allegations of gross misconduct against him? Did he act in breach of the Constitution as alleged? It is a grave offence to breach the Constitution.
Why should a governor spend public funds without appropriation by the assembly or decline to send a list of commissioner-nominees for screening and confirmation? Can special advisers constitute the executive council of a state (EXCO) and approve the Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) on which fiscal budgets are predicated? Fubara’s mistake is not knowing how to manage the lawmakers in the face of his feud with their common benefactor, Nyesom Wike. If he had handled things well, he might have won the lawmakers over to the consternation of their godfather.
This may be too late now. The battleline is drawn again. His only hope is in the President. But for how long will he continue to run to the President? The President has many other matters to contend with, without being bogged down by Fubara’s self-inflicted woes. He knows what to do, but has deliberately refused to do it for reasons best known to him. Those calling for peace today should have intervened long before things got to a head. They should not have waited for the impeachment proceedings to be initiated before wading in the crisis.
What this says about them is that they do not want the governor impeached, but they are comfortable with him governing without following due process. When the Supreme Court described Fubara as a “despot”, they did not call him to order. When the President declared a state of emergency in Rivers last March to save him from impeachment then, some of them described it as illegal. Strangely, now that the assembly has again resorted to impeachment, they want peace because his neck is on the chopping block!
Only Fubara can save Fubara from himself. He knows what to do if he wants this cup to pass over him.
