Lawyers Demand End of Emergency Rule in Rivers, Petition Trump, Protest in Port Harcourt

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By Meshach Osaro 

Lawyers in Defence of Democracy is a group of attorneys who have taken to the streets to call for Rivers State to return to democratic rule.  Attorneys call for the suspension of Fubara to be lifted.  The group is urging the international community and the United States to exert pressure on the Nigerian government to reverse its decision to suspend the Rivers State House of Assembly and Governor Siminalayi Fubara.  The attorneys said that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu's proclamation of a state of emergency in Rivers state is illegal and threatens democracy, and they were led by Barr. Uche Chukwu Udeh Sylvester, their Country Director.

They asserted that due process was not followed and that the president's decision was made without obvious and immediate threat. They asked President Donald Trump to step in and exert pressure on the Nigerian government to reinstate democracy in Rivers State in a letter.  The attorneys contended that the state assembly and Governor Fubara's suspension is an egregious attempt to subvert constitutional order.  The attorneys also call the National Assembly's ratification of the president's decision an attack on democracy.

They insist that Governor Fubara be let to continue serving as the state's democratically elected governor and that President Tinubu change his mind. "In an era where democracy is supposed to reign supreme giving democracy dividends to the masses, we have found ourselves at a crossroads, a sober moment of reckoning where constitutional order is being tested most brazenly," the letter stated.  "Under the pretext of Emergency Rule, the president, who vowed to enforce the Constitution, has taken a most unprecedented and illegal act by suspending a democratically elected governor, deputy governor, and whole state House of Assembly.  What kind of emergency?  Rivers people and Nigerians did not perceive or experience such an emergency.

"In our law books and we stand by this, no constitutional provision, statute or any known convention gives the president the powers to single-handedly dissolve the structures of an elected state government."

Meshach Osaro 

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