The All Progressive Congress (APC), Rivers state chapter has urged Governor Siminalayi Fubara to resist from acts capable of escalating the political crisis rocking the state.
Tony Okocha, state caretaker committee chairman of the party, gave the charge at a news briefing in Port Harcourt.
Okocha was reacting to the exparte order granted to the factional Speaker of the House of Assembly, Mr Ediso Ehie, restraining two PDP lawmakers, Martin Amaewhule and Dumle Maol, from disobeying the order and relocating the conduct of the assembly’s “activities and meetings” to a more secure place.
According to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), Amaewhule and Maol still lay claim to the Speakership and Deputy Speakership of the House.
The exparte order was granted by a Port Harcourt High Court, presided over by Justice M.W. Danagogo.
The order also restrained Amaewhule from “disrupting and interfering” with Ehie’s activities, pending the determination of the motion on notice.
The court also warned against the use of thugs and police by Amaewhule to forcefully gain access to the premises of the state House of Assembly Complex.
Meanwhile, the court ordered the relocation of the house “to a secure and more conducive environment to ensure that the activities and meetings of the house are not disrupted during the period of the renovation of the burnt building, pending the determination of the hearing of the motion already filed.”
Ehie had been conducting the activities of the house outside the assembly complex after it was torched on the night of October 29.
But the APC chairman decried Danagogo’s order recognizing Ehie as the speaker when judgment was reserved for January 2024 on a suit Ehie filed seeking to be recognized as speaker.
He said that granting an experte order on the same case in which judgment had been reserved was an abuse of court processes.
Okocha said that APC would not sit and watch the experte order executed, alleging that the order was made in clear violation of known principles of law and disobedience of the National Judicial Council (NJC) law.
