By Dr. Tonye Clinton Jaja.
“It takes two to tango” may be used to mean “a quarrel requires two disputing parties,” is an expression which is often used in situations in which both partners in the dispute should or could be said to share responsibility, or when one person is being blamed, but two are actually at fault.
As the foregoing cliche clearly states, it takes two to tango, apart from the President Bola Ahmed Tinubu (PBAT), Wike, the National Assembly, the Sole Administrator of Rivers State on the one hand.
There are other accomplices that are collaborating to perpetuate the brazen violation of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 and disobedience of court orders in Rivers State.
Unfortunately, these acxomplices are lawyers who took an oath to uphold the Rule of Law at the point of their enrollment as lawyers of the Supreme Court of Nigeria.
It is ironic that by both their words and actions, these lawyers are violating both the rule of law that they swore to uphold and, more ergeriously, they are disobeying judgments of the Supreme Court of Nigeria of which they are ministers in the temple of Justice!!!
Although there are many lawyers that are currently serving as accomplices to the Sole Administrator of Rivers State in this brazen and daily violations of the rule of law and disobedience to judgments of the Supreme Court we shall focus on Prof. Ibibia Worika and Dr. Sam Kalagbo as Representative case studies.
Prof. Ibibia Worika accepted the appointment to serve as Secretary to the unconstitutional Sole Administrator of Rivers State Government.
Similarly, Dr. Sam Kalagbo has also accepted to serve as Sole Administrator of Port Harcourt Local Government Area (LGA) of Rivers State under the unconstitutional regime of the Sole Administrator of Rivers State.
There are a lot of similarities between both Prof. Worika and Dr. Kalagbo.
One of the similarities is that both men are lawyers who ought to know better, and nobody put a gun to their heads and forced them to serve as accomplices to the said Sole Administrator of Rivers State.
They both voluntarily accepted to serve as accomplices to the unconstitutional government of the Sole Administrator of Rivers State.
Both Prof. Worika and Dr. Kalagbo are die-hard supporters of His Excellency Nyesom Ezenwo Wike (NEW) who is the prime agent provocateur of the current crisis in Rivers State.
Both Prof. Worika and Dr. Kalagbo are accomplices with the Sole Administrator in violation of the Supreme Court of Nigeria judgments of July 2024 and 28th February 2025, respectively.
Coincidentally, the lead judgments in both Supreme Court of Nigeria judgments were delivered by Hon.. Justice Emmanuel Agim, JSC.
In the most recent judgment of 28th February 2025, Hon. Justice Emmanuel Akomaye Agim, JSC stated that Governor Fubara was guilty of hindering the operation of the Rivers State House of Assembly led by Amaewhule.
The judgment also declared that the election of 23 Local Government Area (LGA) Chairmen conducted by Governor Fubara was null and void.
In that judgment, the Supreme Court of Nigeria SPECIFICALLY ORDERED Governor Fubara to re-submit the 2025 Appropriation (Budget) Bill to the Rivers State House of Assembly.
It did not mention that the said Appropriation Bill should be submitted by any Sole Administrator of Rivers State to any legislature!!!
Also, it did not order Governor Fubara or any other person to appoint persons to serve as Sole administrators of the 23 Local Government Areas (LGAs) of Rivers State.
It specifically ordered the conduct of fresh elections!!!
This is in line with the previous July 2024 judgment of the Supreme Court of Nigeria which amongst others specifically stated that under no circumstances should unelected officials be allowed to superintend or administer the affairs of the LGAs.
Prof. Worika and Dr. Kalagbo are in direct violation of this particular judgment of the Supreme Court of Nigeria considering that it was Prof. Worika that announced that with effect from 7th April 2025, Dr. Kalagbo and other unelected officials are to serve as Sole Administrators of the 23 Local Government Areas (LGAs) of Rivers State.
For the avoidance of any doubts the summary of the Supreme Court of Nigeria judgment of July 2024 is reproduced hereunder:
“Justice Emmanuel Akomaye Agim JSC, who read the lead judgment, said states are mandated to ensure that their local government councils are democratically elected, and that governors cannot use their powers to dissolve democratically elected local government councils.
“The amount standing to the credit of local government councils must be paid by the federation to the local government councils and not by any other person or body,” the judge said.
“The said amount must be paid to local government councils that are democratically elected.”
