Hours after court stopped Rivers allocation, Fubara says he’ll pay contractors, civil servants ‘tomorrow’

Governor Siminalayi Fubara of Rivers State on Wednesday said contractors and civil servants in the state will be paid tomorrow (Thursday) despite a court restricting the release of allocations to the state.

“That one is the least of your troubles. By tomorrow, I am still going to pay my contractors. By tomorrow, for those of you who have not gotten your salaries, your alert will also come to you,” Mr Fubara said in Port Harcourt at a Thanksgiving Service marking one year after a failed impeachment attempt on him.

This is contained in a statement sent to PREMIUM TIMES by Governor Fubara’s spokesperson, Nelson Chukwudi.

He made the statement hours after a Federal High Court in Abuja restricted the Central Bank of Nigeria from releasing federal allocations to the state for failing to present the 2024 budget to a properly constituted Rivers House of Assembly.

The case was instituted by the pro-Wike lawmakers, who had challenged the state 2024 budget, which was signed into law in December last year after it was passed by a four-member assembly backed by Mr Fubara.

The judge, Joyce Abdulmalik, held that Mr Fubara’s failure to present the budget to a properly constituted Rivers Assembly was a constitutional somersault and directed the CBN and the Accountant General of the Federation to stop releasing monthly allocations to Rivers State.

Mr Fubara presented the N800 billion budget to the four-member assembly after the seats of the 27 pro-Wike lawmakers were declared vacant following their defection to the All Progressives Congress.

But Mr Wike’s loyalists had challenged the budget. They secured several court victories against Mr Fubara, including from the Court of Appeal in Abuja, which voided the budget and ordered it to be represented to a properly constituted assembly.

However, Mr Fubara has appealed the judgment to the Supreme Court and filed for a stay of execution.

‘It was an assassination at me directly’ – Fubara

At the ceremony, Mr Fubara thanked God and the people of Rivers for their support since 30 October last year, when the pro-Wike lawmakers initiated a failed impeachment against him.

The Governor said, “If you were not with us, if you had not stood with us, we wouldn’t be here at this hour. A lot of you might not understand what happened on the 30th of October, 2023. It was an assassination to the people of Rivers State, indirectly, and an assassination at me directly.

“Since they can’t kill every one of you, they need to kill one person so that everybody will be declared dead. But somehow, somewhere, by the special grace of God, they failed. And the God that we are thanking today, what they meant for evil, God turned it to good,” he said.

The pro-Wike lawmakers have maintained that the state has no budget and insisted that Mr Fubara must re-present the 2024 budget to them for consideration.

Speaking at the service, Mr Fubara, who had earlier declared that Mr Wike’s loyalists did not exist, made a statement suggesting that re-presenting the budget to his opponents will bring them back to life, indicating that he will not honour the lawmakers’ request.

He explained that the lawmakers ambushed him by refusing to withdraw their litigations concerning the crisis after he (Mr Fubara) did so in compliance with the peace deal.

“When I discovered that I was being ambushed, not by the person who initiated the peace, but by people who believed that they were smarter.

“But you know such smartness, no matter what you call yourself, it is still foolishness before God. That is why, as they said, those other things that they are looking for, to make them feel they are coming back to life, we will not do it. So, let me see how they will come to life when we don’t do it,” he said.