……..as Speaker returns to trenches over plans to recall him
By Emmanuel Abi Couson
The Rivers State House of Assembly, Friday adjourned legislative activities indefinitely.
The House suspended its sittings barely, forty Eight hours of receipt of the Governor’s letter of intent , to present the 2025 Rivers State budget on Wednesday 19th March.
The Speaker Martin Amaewhule disclosed this in Port Harcourt on Friday 14 (after passing three bills) and gave no reason for their actions.
It would be recalled that on Wednesday 12 Governor Siminalayi Fubara had written to the House of Assembly on his intention to present the 2025 Rivers State budget on Wednesday 19th or at any date in March convenient to the House of Assembly.
This is coming on the heels of the process of recalling the speaker by his constituency of Obio/Akpor led by a lawyer, Barr Kenneth Amadi
The lawyer has written to the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, to commence recall proceedings against the Speaker of the Rivers State House of Assembly, Martin Amaewhule.
The letter, dated 7th March, 2025, and addressed to the Resident Electoral Commissioner, INEC, Rivers State, was titled, ‘Pre-Action Notice: Request made pursuant to the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999, and Freedom of Information Act, 2011, for a certified true copy of the verified voter register for Obio/Akpor Federal/State Constituency, Rivers State as preliminary steps towards the recall of Martins Amaewhule, the legislator representing Obio/Akpor State Constituency at the Rivers State House of Assembly’.
The minister of FCT Barr. Nyesom Wike, the immediate governor of Rivers State had also at the week lampooned his estranged political son Governor Fubara for disrespecting him and changing traditional rulers in Obio/Akpor without recourse to him and doing all sorts of things to discredit him in his constituency.
Both Wike and the Speaker are from the same constituency and infact the latter has been man Friday and political son of the former ; and political observers believe that with the adjournment, they will now put their booths down first in dousing the recall threat and then plan further strategy to ensure they continue their onslaught.