A group of 60 Federal Lawmakers, otherwise known G-60, has declared that the members of the Rivers State House of Assembly lacked the legitimacy to amend the State’s Public Procurement law having ceased to exist since December last year for defecting from the PDP to APC.
According to the G-60, the purported veto of the powers of Governor Siminialayi Fubara by the group of 27 persons parading themselves as Rivers State lawmakers was nothing but legislative madness taken too far.
The 60 federal lawmakers stated these while reacting to the alleged overriding of the assent of Governor Fubara to pass the Rivers State Public Procurement (Amendment) Bill 2024.
In a statement signed by the G-60 Spokesperson and the member of House of Representatives representing Ideato North/South Federal Constituency of Imo State, Hon. Ikenga Imo Ugochinyere, the group said the veto was an unenforceable legislative rascality.
They maintained that the ‘Abuja-based lawmakers’ who operate from a two-room self-contained apartment in Emohua and Abuja were still moving on freely parading themselves as lawmakers on account of the mercy of Governor Fubara in obedience to the Peace Accord midwifed by President Bola Tinubu.
Ugochinyere said: “These clowns as far as we are concerned are still moving about freely parading themselves freely because of Governor Fubara’s Mercy and largely in obedience to the peace accord brokered by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to end the political crisis in the state. However, while the Governor has stick the accord, his predecessor and Federal Capital Territory, FCT, Minister, Chief Nyesom Wike has not with what his loyalists are doing.
“One of such evidence is the purported veto of Rivers procurement law which is an unenforceable legislative madness by impostors who scared of impact of Fubara’s infrastructure revolution.
“If not, how can people worth calling lawmakers even think that mobilisation fee of not more than 20 per cent of any contract sum is enough for suppliers or contractors to move to site or provide good and service in the present economic quagmire masterminded by their allies in the federal government?
“It is also on notice that these persons who seat in some hotel rooms in Abuja or anywhere their paymasters take them to make such pronouncements have lost the status of lawmakers ever since they dumped the party, the PDP which was a vehicle that brought them to power and joined APC.
“The action violated Section 109 (1) (g) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (as amended) which states that; Section 109 (1) of the 1999 Constitution provides that ‘a member of a House of Assembly shall vacate his seat in the House if … (g) being a person whose election to the House of Assembly was sponsored by a political Party, he becomes a member of another political party before the expiration of the period for which that House was elected.
“To this end, these person are not lawmakers and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) should rise to the occasion and conduct election to fill those vacant seats and save Rivers from this continuous illegality and Nigeria the embarrassment that non-existing lawmakers are causing too often.
“We reiterate that the so-called veto will not be enforced, it is madness taken too far by crowns whose existence under the banner they claim is made possible by the mercy of Governor Fubara who choose to respect the President and promote peace which to him is sin qua non for the development he is committed to bringing to Rivers State.”
