Facts\u00a0 have emerged as to why Governor Seriake Dickson\u00a0 arbitrarily sacked two council chairmen.<\/p>\n
Those he\u00a0 fired are Chief Koku Gariga for Sagbama council, and Chief Ineye Igbaifegha. The duo had been having a running battle with Dickson over who was the authentic party candidate at the last council election. The duo had joined issues with the state party machinery in\u00a0 court.<\/p>\n
Akoso Napoleon and Ebikeme Okoringa were\u00a0 sworn in as the acting chairmen of Sagbama and Kolokuma\/Opokuma local government areas respectively.<\/p>\n
The crisis over the 2010 council polls\u00a0 started during the administration of Timipre Sylva when the Leadership of the Party under the Former Chairman, Rufus Abadi issued certificate of return to Five candidates of the Party for the Chairmanship polls and another set of Flag Bearer were issued certificate by the Secretary of the Party, Chief James Angaye under the strict instruction of the Governor, Chief Timipre Sylva.<\/p>\n
The\u00a0 five candidates of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for the April Local Government council election\u00a0 had dragged the members of the State Executive Committee of the party to court over duplication of the presentation of certificate of Returns to thirteen candidates of the party in the state.<\/p>\n
The whole issue became messy when one flank claimed\u00a0\u00a0 that the presentation of certificates to eight PDP candidates by the Governor\u2019s faction came after another set of Certificates of Return were presented to eight others by the Chairman of the Party, Chief Rufus Abadi.<\/p>\n
The aggrieved candidates, including Chief Koku Gariga (Sagbama), Chief Ineye Igbaifegha (Kolokuma\/Opokuma),Beneth Igbani (Ogbia),Selekebina Sabor (Ekeremor) and Prince Okolobaowei Seikumoh (Yenagoa), had asked\u00a0 the court to interpret the relevant sections of the Party constitution on which of the executive member signature is needed by on the certificate of return as issued by the Party.<\/p>\n
After two years of legal battles, two out of the five Chieftains of the Party who\u00a0 laid claims to the candidature of the PDP for the 2010 Local Government poll stepped down. But the trio of Koku Gariga (Sagbama),Selekebina Saboh(Ekeremor) and Ineye Igbaifegha (Kolokuma\/Opokuma) pursued their cases before the State High Court and the Court of Appeal sitting in Port Harcourt, Rivers State.<\/p>\n
The Appeal sided with the trio and\u00a0 sacked\u00a0 Julius Idie, Ebitimi Diagoli and Pere Peretus who were already operating as chairmen.<\/p>\n
It was learnt that when\u00a0 Dickson and Chief Judge Kate Abiri\u00a0 refused to\u00a0 act on the court order, Gariga, Saboh and Igbaifegha aproached the customary court for inauguration, which they got.<\/p>\n
This apparently irked Dickson who ordered their arrest but the trio vowed to assume offices. Which they did.<\/p>\n
Their swearing in was performed by Governor Dickson under the supervision of the Chief Judge, Kate Abiri. The changes came after the surprise impeachment of the former chairmen of the affected local government areas over alleged abuse of office.<\/p>\n
The Peoples Democratic Party had issued a statement accusing the fired chairmen of making attempts to undermine the peace of their local councils with the collaboration of some desperate politicians and power seekers.<\/p>\n
Signed by the state chairman of the PDP, Sam Inokoba, a retired colonel, the statement claimed that \u201cbarely two months ago PDP in Bayelsa State waded into the matter concerning the three LGAs. We took the decision because of several disturbing reports on the refusal of the chairmen of the three local government areas to work with their respective councilors.As a responsible party, we at the time decried the action of the chairmen, particularly their refusal to work with the councilors”.<\/p>\n
The party advised the chairmen to work harmoniously with their councilors and not see their reinstatement by the Supreme Court as a call to exact vengeance.<\/p>\n
\u201cSadly, rather than allow reason [to] prevail, the said chairmen have chosen to embrace the path of self-destruction, apparently because they have long ceased to be members and dumped our great party and embraced little known Change Advocacy Party (CAP).<\/p>\n
\u201cHaving found themselves in councils dominated by PDP-elected councilors, these chairmen have since discovered that they cannot be sole administrators from their shaky CAP platform. The point must be made clear that no sooner had the chairmen been reinstated than they appointed their vice chairmen without recourse to the councilors, who are constitutionally empowered to ratify such appointments.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Facts\u00a0 have emerged as to why Governor Seriake Dickson\u00a0 arbitrarily sacked two council chairmen. Those he\u00a0 fired are Chief Koku Gariga for Sagbama council, and Chief Ineye Igbaifegha. The duo…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9759,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9753","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\n