President Bola Tinubu’s bid to secure legislative approval for the state of emergency in Rivers State hit a setback on Wednesday as the House of Representatives failed to vote on the matter due to low attendance.
The Nigerian Constitution, under Section 305, requires that any presidential declaration of emergency be approved by a two-thirds majority in both the House of Representatives and the Senate within two days of issuance.
However, the House of Reps plenary saw less than 80 lawmakers in attendance—far below the 120 members needed to form a quorum in the 360-member chamber—making it impossible to make a binding decision on the controversial declaration.
The House convened on Wednesday morning with Tinubu’s emergency proclamation listed under messages from the president. However, due to the low turnout, lawmakers could not proceed with an official vote, as House rules require a one-third quorum for any decision to be legally binding.
The chamber could only discuss motions and receive petitions.
Reports suggest that some lawmakers deliberately avoided the session to distance themselves from what critics call an “unconstitutional overreach” by the president.
Recall that President Tinubu, in a national broadcast on Tuesday evening, suspended Rivers State Governor Siminalayi Fubara, his Deputy Ngozi Odu, and all members of the State House of Assembly for six months.
As part of the emergency rule, Tinubu appointed retired Chief of Naval Staff, Vice Admiral Ibok-Ete Ekwe Ibas (Rtd.), as sole administrator of the state.
Meanwhile, many have expressed concern, arguing that the Nigerian Constitution does not grant the president power to remove an elected governor.
An elected president cannot remove an elected governor under the current constitutional arrangement of the country.
If the president is obliged to the rule if law as has been made to believe , the president should have been quick to demand a supreme court reversal of it’s shameful ruling on the Rivers State crisis, allow the High Court to finish up deliberations on issue of defection, nor fail to pretend it does not know about the defections of the 27 lawmakers and the origin of the crises
If the President wanted to appear natural to justice, he would have declared the state of emergency, stopping all functionings of any group of people as members of Rivers State House of Assembly, while also transferring the functionality of the state to the House of Representatives until sanity returns for the number of days of suspension the president wishes.
The Nigerian President has shown he has taken a side in this River crisis