There had been a tussle as to whether it is the president of the customary court of appeal that should be the acting Chief Judge of the state or the judge that had been appointed by the National Judicial Council to preside, pending the appointment of a new chief judge.
Iyanam who made the recommendation in a chat with Daily Independent in Uyo, the Akwa Ibom State capital, said constitutional crisis that is intractable is worse than having a riot, or even a civil insurrection, even of the type seen in the north-eastern part of the country.
He said the River’s strife is a threat to democracy itself.
“Right now, the judiciary is not functioning in River’s State owing to what I see as strong headedness of the governor, and perhaps it suits his purpose for the judiciary not to work.
“This calls for a declaration of the state of emergency in that state, until such a time that things are brought to normalcy.
“The state of emergency we have had in the past was not even as deserving as what we have in Rivers State and we tend to overlook it because what we have seen in Rivers State eats slowly into the fabric of democratic institution,” he stated.
“If you allow the status-quo to be, it means that Nigeria would continue to slowly move into abyss, because if you allow it to happen in Rivers State, there is no way you can justify it when it happens elsewhere.
“We have had a few problems before in the appointment of a chief judge, in Oyo State, but it was quickly resolved. The one of Rivers State appears insurmountable because the governor is acting this way because some of the organs that are supposed to check his excesses are no longer available”. He said.
Iyanam who insisted that adequate measure be taken to address the state of anarchy in Rivers said the governor has disassociated himself from every functional organs that should moderate his activities and has almost crippled their functionality and charged Nigerians to be courageous enough to call on the president to declare state of emergency in that state.
He noted that Governor Rotimi Amechi was no longer in PDP, and the APC he went to join has no hold on him, and as such nobody from any angle is moderating any influence on the governor.
“There is no House of Assembly; the legal system is crippled,” he stated.
This ugly development, he said, has made the governor a sole administrator of that state, to the detriment of the helpless indigenes of the state.
“I think the governor of Rivers State, Amechi, is flexing muscles where he shouldn’t really be doing so and the result is that we have constitutional crisis in Rivers State. This is very disgraceful, things like these should not be allowed to happen, and coming from a governor who at one time was Speaker of the House of Assembly is most regrettable,” he stated.
Source: Daily Independent
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