The caretaker chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC) Rivers State chapter, Chief Tony Okocha has urged Governor Siminalaye Fubara to stop running the state without a budget.
Okocha also advised the governor to obey the peace agreement of President Bola Tinubu by re-presenting the state budget before the State House of Assembly.
Describing the development as gross financial misconduct by the governor, the APC chieftain accused Fubara of jettisoning an agreement he entered with the president to re-present the budget to a complete house for peace to reign in the state.
Okocha offered the advice on Thursday, February 15, in Abuja at an event to discuss the imperative of revisiting the president’s intervention for progress in Rivers State.
Okocha who lamented that the governor was going against the laws of the land by ignoring the state house of assembly, regretted that it has gotten to the point where the assembly now overrides the governor for declining four important bills passed to him by the lawmakers.
He said: “They started it, few of them were running to Mr. President to intervene in the matter. And Mr. President, as busy as his schedules are, called the Rivers people together for a peace meeting. I was there at the meeting with other stakeholders, the governor agreed to implement all the agreements. Now, the way he rushed to present the budget before four assembly members, he also went back and re-present before the complete house, it is not a difficult task.
“As it stands now, Rivers is sitting on a keg of gunpowder that will soon go into flames if the governor does not call himself to order. Running Rivers State without a budget amounts to gross financial misconduct.
“There must be something he is hiding because that is blatant abuse of the law and a gross disrespect for the President because it is contained in the eighth agreement he signed.”
Okocha advised the governor to close his ears to mediocre and fifth columnists whose business is pecuniary.
The Nation
