By Davies Iheamnachor
A Rivers State High Court in Oyigbo Local Government Area has adjourned indefinitely, the suit filed by Governor Siminalayi Fubara and his deputy, Ngozi Odu, challenging their impeachment process initiated by the Rivers State House of Assembly thereby effectively shifting the battleground to the Court of Appeal.
Justice Florence Fiberesima on Friday adjourned the matter after counsel to the defendants in the suit, S.I Amen, informed the court about a pending appeal filed by the defendants on the same subject. He prayed the court to suspend further hearing pending the determination of the appeal. Paul Erokoro, lead counsel to the claimants, and Lawrence Oko-Jaja, counsel to the 28th, 29th and 30th defendants, did not oppose the oral application.
Consequently, Florence Fiberesima, presiding judge, adjourned indefinitely pending the outcome of an appeal. She noted that the outcome of the appeal will help the court determine the substantive suit before it.
The judge also suspended the ex parte order she granted on January 16, which restrained the Chief Judge of the state from receiving or acting on any impeachment notice against Fubara and his deputy.
On January 8, the Rivers state parliament commenced impeachment proceedings against Fubara and his deputy.
The lawmakers began the process after Major Jack, leader of the assembly, read allegations of gross misconduct against Fubara, endorsed by 26 members of the house.
On January 16, the lawmakers voted in favour of a motion requesting the chief judge to probe the gross misconduct allegations against Fubara and his deputy.
The allegations include budgetary impropriety, failure to present the 2026 appropriation bill to the assembly, unauthorised expenditure of public funds, withholding of statutory allocations to the legislature, and other acts deemed to constitute gross misconduct.
Following an ex parte application by the governor and his deputy, Fiberesima, a state high court judge, issued an interim order restraining the chief judge from receiving or acting on any impeachment notice against Fubara and Odu.
The Rivers state house of assembly had asked the Chief Judge, Justice Simeon Amadi, to set up a seven-member panel to investigate Fubara and Odu, his deputy, over allegations bordering on gross misconduct.
But in a letter dated January 20, 2026, and addressed to Martin Amaewhule, speaker of the Rivers house of assembly, Amadi declined to constitute a judicial panel to probe the governor and Odu.
In the letter, Justice Amadi cited subsisting court orders and the pending appeal.
“By the doctrine of ‘lis pendens’, parties and the court have to await the outcome of the appeal,” the letter read. “In view of the foregoing, my hand is fettered, as there are subsisting interim orders of injunction and appeal against the said orders. I am therefore legally disabled at this point from exercising my duties under Section 188(5) of the Constitution in the instant.”
The letter acknowledged receipt of two requests dated 16 January 2026, made pursuant to Sections 188(4) and 188(5) of the 1999 Constitution (as amended), alongside documents including notices of allegations, procedural guidelines, and newspaper publications.
Mr Amadi disclosed that his office had been served with interim injunctions issued on the same day by the Oyigbo High Court in suits filed separately by the governor and his deputy. The orders expressly restrained him from “receiving, forwarding, considering or howsoever acting on any request, resolution, articles of impeachment or other communication” from the Assembly relating to the impeachment process.
With the High Court stepping aside and the Chief Judge invoking judicial restraint, the impeachment push now waits on the Court of Appeal.
The post Court suspends order restraining Rivers CJ, adjourns Fubara impeachment suit indefinitely appeared first on Vanguard News.
