The Senior Special Assistant on Public Communications and New Media to Federal Capital Territory FCT Minister, Lere Olayinka, has warned a chieftain of the Yoruba sociocultural group, Afenifere, Dr Femi Okurounmu against taking sides in the protracted political crisis in Rivers State.
He said that Okurounmu’s involvement in the crisis is capable of ridiculing his status as an elder statesman, “especially matters on which he would not speak objectively for obvious reasons”.
Olayinka in a statement on Tuesday night in Abuja said Dr Okurounmu’s statement, accusing President Bola Tinubu of being laid-back in the ongoing crisis in Rivers State, was in bad faith and asked “what exactly Dr Okurounmu expected President Tinubu to have done.”
Olayinka said it was strange that Dr Okurounmu, a former Senator could opt to be playing the ostrich to the avalanche of disobedience to court judgements by the Governor of Rivers State, Sim Fubara, and the dangers such affront on the judiciary poses to democracy and public peace.
He said; “One is however not too amazed because he (Okurounmu) holds the record of being the first Senator to be suspended by his colleagues out of the seven Senators that have been suspended since 1999 till date”.
Dr Okurounmu had reportedly fingered the FCT Minister of being the architect and mastermind of the Rivers crisis, saying, “even if Governor Sim Fubara is his godson, Wike should be told that he cannot be his surrogate as a sitting governor with full powers.”
Olayinka wondered when Wike told Dr Okurounmu that he wanted Governor Fubara to be his surrogate, and not function as the Governor of Rivers State, adding that “He (Okurounmu), as an elder should be honest enough to stand before the mirror and ask himself the roles he played in Fubara becoming governor.”
He said; “In Yoruba land, when two children are fighting, what the elders do is to sit them down and listen to their sides of the conflict. Elders don’t just sit in their bedrooms and apportion blames as done by Baba Femi Okurounmu.
“Was it Wike that went to the Rivers State House of Assembly Complex and set it on fire so as to prevent duly elected lawmakers from carrying out their duties?
“Was it Wike that has been illegally using three members out of the 32-member State House of Assembly to carry out legislative business in Rivers State, including passing the State Budget as well as screening and confirming commissioners, when the constitution says that budget can only be passed by two-third of the Assembly members?
“Hasn’t Governor Fubara been ignoring judgements of the courts concerning his regime of lawlessness in Rivers State? When the Court of Appeal in Abuja on October 10, 2024, affirmed a lower court’s decision nullifying the Rivers State’s 2024 budget signed into law and being operated by Governor Fubara, did the governor obey the judgement?
“And is it not shocking that Dr Okurounmu had chosen to ignore the danger Governor Fubara’s deliberate affronts on the rule of law pose to democracy and peace in Nigeria?”
On Dr Okurounmu’s accusation that President Tinubu was being laid-back on the Rivers State crisis, Olayinka asked; “What exactly does Baba Femi Okurounmu expect the President to have done? Overrule the various judicial pronouncements and join Governor Fubara in his reign of lawlessness?
He said the illegal N800 billion budget passed in December 2023 by a faction of the fractured state’s House of Assembly consisting of four lawmakers led by Edison Ehie was not Wike’s doing and so the minister should not be blamed for that.
