Human rights attorney Nsirimovu Courage has asserted that President Bola Tinubu lacks constitutional authority to suspend or dismiss any incumbent state governor. The legal practitioner made these declarations while addressing the emergency declaration in Rivers State and the subsequent suspension of Governor Siminalayi Fubara.
During his television appearance on Silverbird TV, Courage referenced established judicial precedent that definitively resolved this constitutional question decades ago. He cited a landmark Supreme Court decision that emerged from events in 2004, when then-President Olusegun Obasanjo proclaimed a state emergency in a particular state and subsequently suspended its governor.
The lawyer highlighted the historical irony of the current situation, noting that Tinubu served as Lagos State governor during the 2004 incident. Courage explained that Tinubu’s attorney-general initiated legal proceedings to contest Obasanjo’s emergency powers, ultimately securing a favorable Supreme Court verdict. The apex court definitively ruled that no president possesses constitutional prerogative to remove or suspend state governors.
Courage emphasized the significance of Tinubu’s direct involvement in establishing this legal precedent, arguing that the current president possesses intimate knowledge of these constitutional limitations. The attorney suggested that Tinubu’s previous experience as both participant and beneficiary of this Supreme Court ruling makes his current actions particularly questionable from a legal standpoint.
In his statement, he said, “There is this case of Attorney-General of Lagos State against Attorney-General of the Federation. It is a 2004 case, the president of Nigeria now Bola Tinubu was the governor of Lagos then. So it is his own Attorney-General that went to court against Obasanjo, challenging Obasanjo’s government for not just declaring state of emergency but removing or suspending a sitting governor. So Tinubu already knows the law that no president has the power to remove an elected governor.
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