Outrage Over Stoppage Of Rivers State’s Funds Allocation

By Adesina Soyooye

■Atiku, Odinkalu, Rhodes-Vivour lament As Militant Group threatens fire and brimstone

The ruling by a Federal High Court, Abuja, which stopped the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, and other institutions from allowing the Rivers State Government access to its funds, has been greeted with outrage.

On Wednesday, October 30, the Honourable Justice Joyce Abdulmalik ordered the CBN to stop all payments to the State. She said that the 2024 budget which Governor Siminalayi Fubara is implementing is illegal and so unconstitutional. She argued that the four-man member House of Assembly before whom the Governor presented the budget was improperly constituted, and so everything approved by them, null and void.

But a number of Nigerians have condemned the ruling and wondered if anybody considered the effect it would have on the people of the State.

In response, former Vice President and Presidential Candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, in the 2023 General Elections, warned the Judiciary not to set fire to Rivers State. Atiku noted that it is already public knowledge that Rivers State has challenged the ruling of the Court of Appeal on Rivers State Budget at the Supreme Court. Meaning that the Honourable Federal Judge erred in his judgment of Wednesday which stopped release of funds by the CBN to Rivers State.

Atiku: “Last week, the Coury of Appeal declared that the Rivers State budget was illegal because it was passed by inchoate Assembly. The Court ordered Governor Siminalayi Fubara to present the budget afresh.

“The Rivers State Government has already filed a notice of appeal so that the Supreme Court can hear the matter. However, some elements in the Bola Tinubu Administration have procured a judgement intended to undermine the Supreme Court.

“Even before the judgement was delivered, legal luminary, Femi Falana, SAN, had alerted the Chief Judge of the Federal High Court, Justice John Tosho, of possible compromise after house gifts had been presented to Judges in Abuja. Sadly, Falana’s warning was ignored.”

Weighing in, a Professor of Law, Chidi Odinkalu, reminded Nigerians of the Supreme Court’s judgement on the seizure of funds in the case between Lagos State Government when President Tinubu was Governor, and the Federal Government under President Olusegun Obasanjo.

He posted: “20 years ago while @official ABAT was governor of @followlasg.@Supreme CourtNg declined an application to withhold the #Federation Account allocations to Lagos LGAs.

“Today a judge of @FederalHigh Court overruled the Supreme Court. This is not #RuleOfLaw: it is tyranny of the #Outlaw.”

In his own reaction, the Lagos State Labour Party Governorship Candidate in the 2023 Election, Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour posted on his X account: “Explain to me how any sane group will approach the court to deny their Allocation that will inflict untold pain on the people? At such a difficult time, how can these desperate politicians pretend not to know it’s the ordinary man that will be so badly hit by this decision? It is so painful that our country is now in the hands of a party and people whose interest supercedes that of the State. Who do not care that a a State burns as long as their vanities are met, who do not care how many companies shutdown, or how many become poor, as long as they maintain their hold on power.”

A new militant group in the Niger Delta had, a few days ago threatened to bomb oil installations in the Zone if Rivers State allocations are withheld on the orders of any Court.