APC’s Tony Okocha accuses Gov Fubara of courting anarchy with disobedience to court rulings

…Fears that aggrieved parties may resort to self-help

Gov Sim Fubara has been pointedly accused of courting anarchy in Rivers State by alleged persistence to disobedience of court judgments.

The governor was also accused of running Rivers State without budgets.

The accusations came Tuesday, February 25, 2025, from Tony Okocha, chairman of the faction of the All Progressives Congress (APC) loyal to the Minister of FCT.

Speaking to newsmen in the Aba Road APC secretariat, Okocha, said Gov Fubara was infracting on rule of law, fearing that such postures usually provoke ugly consequences when aggrieved parties decide to take the law into their own hands.

He feared that expected judgments of the Supreme Court in some crucial matters before it may be rejected and disobeyed by parties from either side now that the precedence seems to have been set.

Read also: Tony Okocha vows to unseat Fubara as Rivers APC elects new leaders at congress, mum on court order

He emphatically said the 27 allegedly defected lawmakers from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) led by Martin Amaewhule did not defect actually, saying what he (as then caretaker committee chairman of the APC) did at the Polo Field was not reception again but a rally to plead with them to defect. “But they did not defect. They did not go to their wards to register.”

Okocha who is fiercely loyal to Nyesom Wike (FCT Minister) said what he is doing is to trying to get quality members specially from the Rivers State House of Assembly.

He stated: “Forget what you see on television and what you read on social media. The lawmakers did not defect. The law is trite on that, and the law is no sentiment.”

He said the governor was fond of going to lower courts to seek judgments on matters decided by higher courts. “There is no way a high court can set aside a matter decided by the Court of Appeal. People just come and speak what they like after gaining access to the peoples vaults.”

On why he is the one fighting for the defected lawmakers since he was not in the same party with them, he said he is the voice of the opposition in the state and voice of the voiceless.

The factional chairman whose executive committee was declared illegal by a high court in Port Harcourt insisted that there is no way anybody can run a state without a budget, saying that is what Gov Fubara was doing.

He said: “We are here to lend our voice to the debate of who is a member of the Rivers State House of Assembly or not. We are disenchanted with Fubara’s disrespect to the law. He is selective in which court ruling to obey and the one not to obey. This leads to anarchy by forcing people to self-help.”

He promised not to resort to such practice but to follow the law. He said telling the governor that the dismissal of the Supreme Court case over the 2024 budget had no implication on the authenticity or otherwise of Amaewhule and the defected lawmakers were deceiving the governor. He said the case had 15 prongs, meaning that by withdrawing his appeal, those prongs now stand.

“The ruling allows parties to go back to status quo bellam, meaning back to how things were before the case was instituted. The Court of Appeal said you do not have a budget. Go back to Amaewhule with the budget. How can the governor say the dismissal was academic?”

Each time Okocha warned against anarchy should court orders not be obeyed, bombings and attacks usually followed it, such as over the local council elections when courts said it should not hold but the government was going ahead to hold it. Many LGA secretariats were burnt down. Both Okocha and Wike pointed at the refusal to obey court orders as primary cause.