An interim order of injunction has been issued by a Rivers State High Court, sitting in Port Harcourt, against the Speaker of the Rivers State Assembly and 25 others, including the Clerk of the House and the Chief Judge of Rivers State, restraining them from proceeding with the impeachment move against Governor Siminalayi Fubara and his deputy, Prof. Ngozi Odu.
Though Governor Fubara has yet to be served with the impeachment notice, his deputy and the state’s Chief Judge have been served.
The order issued by Justice F. A. Fiberesima, also restrained the Chief Judge of the state, Justice Simeon Chibuzor-Amadi, from receiving, forwarding, considering and/or however acting on any request, resolution, articles of impeachment or other document or communication from the first to the twenty-seventh defendants for the purpose of constituting a panel to investigate the purported allegations of misconduct against the governor and his deputy for seven days.
Justice Fiberesima, in a ruling on a motion ex parte in two separate suits by Governor Fubara and the Deputy Governor, Professor Ngozi Nma-Ordu, also granted leave to the claimant applicants to serve the interim order, the originating processes in the suits and all other subsequent processes meant for the first to the thirty-first defendants at the gate of the Rivers State Assembly quarters.
The court also directed that the interim order and the originating processes in the suits be served on the thirty-second defendant (the Chief Judge of the state), through any staff of the judiciary at the Chief Judge’s Chambers within the High Court premises.
Justice Fiberesima consequently adjourned the matter to January 23 for motion.
