A member representing Abua/Odual and Ahoada East Federal Constituency of Rivers State in the House of Representatives, Honourable Solomon Bob has faulted Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Femi Falana’s interpretation of the Supreme Court judgment dismissing Governor Siminalayi Fubara’s appeal challenging the leadership of the Rivers State House of Assembly.
ThisNigeria reports that the Supreme Court dismissed an appeal by Fubara against the judgment of the Court of Appeal, which had earlier upheld the judgment of Justice Joseph Omotosho of the Federal High Court in Suit N0 FHC/ABJ/CS/1613/2023.
Fubara was also ordered to pay N2m to the Assembly and the Speaker of the Rivers State House of Assembly, Martin Amaewhule, by a five-member panel led by Justice Uwani Abba-Aji on Monday, February 10.
The case was dismissed after Fubara’s lawyer, Yusuf Ali, withdrew the suit.
However, Falana, while speaking during a TV programme stated that the dismissed appeal related only to the 2024 appropriation law and, therefore, merely academic.
Reacting to the SAN’s interpretation in a statement issued on Friday, Honourable Bob described it as “wrong and misleading.”
He expressed disappointment over the lawyer’s “consistent penchant for misleading the public with respect to the Rivers crisis.”
Bob also noted that Falana was “downplaying the dire ramifications of spending without an appropriation law.”
The lawmaker also knocked Falana over his public appearances that three members can constitute the legal quorum in a House of as yet 30 members, saying that he has justified every illegality and absurdity concerning the crises in the state.
The statement read “One of the judgment orders declares that:
“AN ORDER is hereby made restraining the 11th Defendant (Governor Fubara) from howsoever or in whatsoever manner making any request, presentation, or nomination in the Rivers State House of Assembly except to the House of Assembly under the leadership of the 2nd Plaintiff” (Speaker Martin Amaewhule).
Clearly, the judgment does not address question of the 2024 budget presentation alone, but all subsequent presentations (including that of 2025), requests, or nominations before the Rivers State House of Assembly.
“However, the ink on the Supreme Court’s dismissal had hardly dried up when Mr. Femi Falana SAN appeared on a television programme to proffer yet another misleading interpretation.
“In his presentation, Mr Falana claimed that the dismissed appeal related only to the 2024 appropriation law and, therefore, merely academic.
“As the above order shows, Mr. Falana was wrong. He was also downplaying the dire ramifications of spending without an appropriation law.
“He also claimed that the dismissed appeal did not touch on the question of membership of the Rivers State House of Assembly.
“Indeed, virtually all the reliefs sought and granted by the Federal High Court and the decision of the Court of Appeal affirm the subsisting membership of the House of Assembly by the 27 legislators.
“By reason of section 272(3) of the constitution, only the Federal High Court is vested with jurisdiction on any question of vacancy in the seats of a House of Assembly.
“Justice Omotosho’s judgment (with the affirming appeals) remains the only decision by a court with the requisite jurisdiction to have pronounced on the status of the 27 members of the Rivers State House of Assembly. Mr. Falana’s insistence that they have lost their seats is outrageous. It lacks legal basis.
“Contrary to his vaunted opinion, section 109(1)(g) of the constitution is not self-executory. And realistically, under a constitutional democracy, no law is. Because every constitutional provision is ultimately subject to judicial interpretation. To suggest otherwise is to deny the imperative of judicial review.
“Often presenting his brief to the appotheosizing lay public as public interest advocacy, Mr. Falana eagerly justifies dangerous out-of-control behaviour and egregious constitutional abuse in Rivers State; the type he would certainly not accept in his native Ekiti.
“Nigeria’s recent history is regrettably replete with instances of defections right across state (and federal) legislatures. Mr. Falana has not been straining at the leash to make the same case in other instances.
“In his many public appearances on the Rivers crisis, he has employed self-serving sophistry and hollow whataboutism to justify every illegality and absurdity, including that 3 members can constitute the legal quorum in a House of as yet 30 members!
“Mr. Falana should separate his animus towards an individual from his exposition of the law and have the humility to admit that he is not the law.
“Because no matter how much legal knowledge he professes, his opinion remains his personal opinion and can not approximate to the law. As Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes once famously said, the law is “The prophecies of what the courts will do in fact…”
“As Rivers State reels under Fubara’s unexampled and deliquent misrule, and the courts undo his myriad criminal misdeeds, a lawyer of Mr. Falana’s prominence should at least respect their decision, not mislead the public.”
