Uncertainty Rages in Rivers
There is hazy cloud of uncertainty in Rivers State, as a State High Court, sitting in Oyigbo Local Government Area, gave an interim injunction, for temporal halt of further action on the impeachment of Governor Siminalayi Fubara and his deputy, Professor Ngozi Nma-Odu by the State House of Assembly.
The presiding Judge of the State Hugh Court, Justice Florence Fiberisima, in a ruling, restrained the Speaker of the Rivers State House of Assembly, Rt. Hon. Martin Amaewhule, and 32 other defendants — including the Clerk of the House, and the Chief Judge of Rivers State, from taking steps towards advancing the impeachment process.
The order restrained the Chief Judge, Justice Simeon Chibuzor-Amadi, from receiving, forwarding, considering, or acting on any request, resolution, or impeachment-related document from the Assembly for the purpose of constituting an investigative panel, pending the determination of the substantive suit.
The injunction is to subsist for seven days, while the order was granted by Justice Florence Fiberesima following the hearing of a motion ex parte filed separately by Governor Fubara and his deputy In the two suits—marked OYHC/7/CS/2026 and OYHC/6/CS/2026—the court also granted the claimants leave to serve the interim order and other originating processes on the first to the thirty-first defendants by pasting them at the gate of the Rivers State House of Assembly quarters.
Justice Fiberisima adjourned the case to January 23, 2026, for hearing of the motion.
Subsequently, members of the State Assembly could not reconvene on January 15 as scheduled in their January 8 adjournment.