IMPEACHMENT SAGA: WHERE RSHA FAILED!

In Rivers State, the House of Assembly, yesterday, Thursday, January 8, 2026, has yet drifted into the trenches for another round of hostilities with Gov. Siminalayi Fubara.

The signs were glaring a few hours after the lifting of the state of emergency on September 18, 2025. Rather than begin with solidifying the terms of peace that saw their return to power, they instead initiated processes of laying landmines as a welcome package.

While Gov. Fubara was busy building bridges of reconciliation and consolidating the gains of the peace deal, members of the State House of Assembly were widening the gulf and completely engrossed with catching the shadow.

They created the political optics of reaching the limit by often descending to the use of impeachment as a threat, anytime, there is deadlock or in playing their fools errand (in Iba’s language). This time, after their ostrich and ultimatum on submission of Commissioners list barely 24 hours of resuming from suspension without dividends, they became frustrated.

The current hue and cry in demanding for budgets 2024, 2025, and 2026 as the crux of misconducts against the governor smacks of unyielding hallucination and frustration created by irreconcilable differences. First, they forgot, albeit, teleguide by a desperate mentor, Chief Nyesom Wike, that in 2024, they were enmeshed in a quagmire of survival after their defection. They only survived by the mercies of a compromised Supreme Court judgment in February 2025. So, the 2024 budget expired with their struggle for survival.

Then the 2025 Budget escaped their desk with the same grandstanding approach which incidentally occasioned one of the warped state of emergencies ever declared in Nigeria. Against, the letters of the constitution, which has been manipulatively backed by the Supreme Court, the President suspended both the governor and the legislature and transferred their powers to the House of Representatives.

Then a N1.4trn budget was later passed by the National Assembly on July 21, 2025 and signed accordingly by the President.

The budget circle is to run for 12 months. In that case the budget became operational in July 2025 and expected to expire at the end of August 2026. It is therefore preposterous for any reasonable Assembly to now subject the governor into presenting another budget for 2025. Except the Assembly members are actually asking for another thing, it is assumed that until the lifespan of the 2025 appropriation is exhausted, no legitimate Assembly that knows its onions would demand for another budget either for that year or a subsequent one. The Rivers 2025 appropriation law is barely 6 months old and cannot amount to gross misconduct if another budget is not submitted to override the already approved one. So, raising a query of misconduct on the above is a clear expression of running a fools errand and shadow catching.

In addition, the claim of refusal to submit the 2026 budget proposal as a misconduct because other States have done, is yet another deep hallucination stemming from the earlier amnesia or paranoia. Otherwise, how would reasonable people tasked with such dignified responsibility of legislating for the State not know that since the previous budget is still pending, there would be no need to be in a hurry for the next except declared necessary by those executing its letters, in this case, the Executive.

If not for the spirit of animosity deeply sited within the legislators and their propeller, Chief Nyesom Wike, there isn’t any issue at all. Gov. Siminalayi Fubara has shown enough commitment to peace and reconciliation and sacrificed enormously to ensure that there won’t be a breakdown of trust anymore, yet the spirit of Mammon overshadowed the political mentor, Chief Nyesom Wike and his enslaved foot soldiers in the Assembly yet again.

These summersaults and grandstanding points to one fact especially going by the lamentations of Rt. Hon. Martin Amaewhule. And that is, Gov. Siminalayi Fubara has bluntly refused to do bonanza with Rivers money with them. Pundits have also said, even at that, their approach of applying impeachment at every provocation is not the best method to gain the governor’s goodwill but through proper reapproachment and smooth conversation. The earlier, Martin Amaewhule and his colleagues jettison this shadow catching method and abandon completely their fools errand the better for them to make up for the lost grounds. A word they say is enough for the wise.

Paul Seigha Tamuno Writes from Port Harcourt