The federal government has been dragged before the Community Court of Justice of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS Court), sitting in Abuja, over the declaration of State of Emergency in Rivers State.
In the suit dated March 20, 2025 and marked ECW/CCJ/APP/18/25, the applicants are seeking an order of the court to set aside and/or quash the suspension of elected officials and removal of the democratic structures and institutions in Rivers State as an imperative for the enthronement of a full-fledged democratic order.
Plaintiffs in the suit, Comrade Harry Ibiso and 11 others, have on their behalf and Eastern Zone of the Ijaw Youth Council also want an order of court setting aside all decisions, actions, policies and directives given or issued by the Sole Administrator appointed by the Respondent’s President on March 18.
In the application brought pursuant to Articles III and IV of the supplementary protocol amending ECOWAS Court’s protocol; Article II of the Protocol of the court and Article 33 of the Rules of the court, the applicants averred that the Respondent’s President (President Bola Ahmed Tinubu), elected into political office, lacked the powers to remove or suspend the governor of a state, who was also elected into the office.
They held that by removing the governor, Siminalayi Fubara, his deputy, Ngozi Odu and members of Rivers State House of Assembly, the fundamental rights of the applicants and the people of Rivers State have been violated.
“By so doing, the defendant has unlawfully taken away the democratic rights of the applicants and that of the population of Rivers State, both individually and collectively,” they averred.
They therefore insisted that the actions of the respondent’s President have not only drowned, diffused and collapsed the constitutional rights of the applicants and the people of the state in neo-junta governance, but also put them into unconstitutional, undemocratic and arbitrary manner of governance which they cannot fit into.
“The implication therefore is that the applicants and the people of Rivers State have lost their existence and dignity as human beings, having been politically emasculated by the loss of the values that accompany democratic governance and deprived of leaders duly elected by them in the democratic space.”
The crux of the applicant’s complaint is anchored on the infringements on their rights to have a government of their choice as people of Rivers State in their individual and collective capacities as the defining constitutional order under the framework of democratic values.
According to them, the actions of the Respondent’s President does not advance the course of democracy and human rights in their contextual and contemporary forms “when national Presidents exhibit absoluteness in determining the existence and functioning of democratic systems in national sub-units by upturning and collapsing entrenched democratic systems.”
Adding, “the deliberate disruption of the democratic order in any part of the national structure questions the democratic practice and constitutional authenticity of the nation state, as the forceful removal of popular sovereignty in a part or fraction of the national landscape translates to the non-existence of liberal democracy and non-application and conformity with constitutional norms in the entire federation.
“The enthronement of an illegal and unconstitutional order in any form within a constitutional democracy threatens the very idea of freedom and precipitates loss of genuineness on the part of the state and its institutions of any legitimate claim to a constitutional democracy.
“A state of emergency cannot be guise or subterfuge for the usurpation of the executive functions of the Governor or the exercise of the law making powers of the legislature”, the applicants held.
The affidavit was disposed to by a constitutional lawyer, Chief Festus Ogwuche and others.
Meanwhile, the court is yet to fix a date for hearing in the matter.
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