Victor Oko-Jumbo has emerged as the Speaker of the Rivers State House of Assembly.
Oko-Jumbo, representing Bonny Constituency in the Rivers State House of Assembly, is one of the lawmakers loyal to Governor Siminalayi Fubara.
His emergence as a Speaker has been described as a countermeasure by Governor Fubara as the political crisis engulfing the state rages on.
Recall that the state chapter of the All Progressive Congress (APC) had earlier called for the impeachment of Fubara, a charge supported by most of the state’s local government chairmen.
Oko-Jumbo was sworn in on Wednesday, May 8, a day after the opposition APC caretaker chairman in Rivers state, Tony Okocha, made a directive to the 27 Assembly members to impeach Governor Fubara.
Oko-Jumbo takes over from the former factional Speaker of the House, Rt. Hon. Eddison Ehie, who resigned as both Speaker and member of the House on December 31, 2023, and was later appointed as Chief of Staff to Governor Fubara.
Oko-Jumbo, a Bonny-born politician, is a staunch supporter of the state governor. The emergence of the factional Speaker of the State House of Assembly came barely 48 hours after Fubara declared that the majority 27 members of the House, who defected from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to the All Progressives Congress (APC), as non-existent.
“Let me say it here, those group of men who claim that they are Assembly members, they are not existing. I want it to be on record” Fubara told a delegation of Bayelsa State political and traditional leaders who visited him at Government House, Port Harcourt, on Monday.
“I accepted that peace accord to give them a floating (soft-landing). That’s the truth. There is nothing in that peace accord that is a constitutional issue. It is a political solution to a problem. I accepted it because these are people that were visiting me and we were together in my house.
“These are people that I have helped in many ways when I wasn’t even a Governor. Yes, we might have our disagreements, but I believe that one day, we could also come together. That was the reason I did it.
“But I think it has gotten to a time when I need to make a statement on this thing, so that they understand that they are not existing. Their existence and whatever they have been doing is because I allowed them to do so. If I don’t recognize them, they are nowhere, that is the truth.”
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