Supreme Court re-affirms position:
Law doesn’t recognize Omehia
…Orders N500,000 fine
Hopes by those who wish to be seen as the arrowheads of the Rivers opposition were dashed early in the week when a suit filed before the Supreme Court simply attracted the wrath of their lordships.
Celestine Omehia who had held brief as governor due largely to the “K-Leg” saga introduced by former maximum leader, President Olusegun Obasanjo had borrowed a leaf from Dr. Abiye Sekibo and headed to court.
As it turned out, the mission of the former Special Adviser to Governor Peter Odili was to get the Supreme Court to reverse itself.
Here in the state, the move was hailed by their supporters and a section of the press as proof that the last days of Governor Rotimi Chibuike Amaechi is around the corner.
But when their lordships sat in judgment in the hallowed Chambers of the Supreme Court Tuesday, they had a big surprise waiting for the Ubima-born politician who despite the goodwill extended to him and his associates by the no victor, no vanquished posture of Amaechi have rather chosen to constitute themselves, from events that are playing out, into cogs in the wheels of progress.
They held that in their earlier hearing of the matter they had spoken eloquently and clearly, and issued the appropriate consequential order which resulted in the resolution of who between Amaechi and Omehia was the actual candidate of the PDP in the last gubernatorial race.
The Court had held then as it held now that Omehia was never a candidate in that election in the eyes of the law.
Accordingly, their lordships threw out the matter brought by Omehia, urging them to reverse their ruling.
Not done with Omehia for murdering sleep as William Shakespeare would put it, their lordships in their ruling clamped a fine of N500, 000 as cost for bringing a frivolous suit before them.
The latest ruling further confirms the position of the law that Governor Amaechi was duly elected, and finally drives a death knell into the coffin of those bent on assailing him.
What is however, increasingly clear is that most of the cases that are being celebrated by a section of the Port Harcourt press have no merit.
In order words, some of these tabloids may not be relying on seasoned investigative skills in arriving in the kind of stories that they are dishing to the public.
Nonetheless, in political circles, what is going on as 2010 approaches is being seen as an attempt by some politicians to remain in the public eye by any means possible.
Said one analyst who does not what his name in print, “these people are just busy wasting money they looted from the public treasury. It may well be another way by which nature is allowing the redistribution of income”.
It may well be so.
The way things are, efforts to divert the attention of the Amaechi administration from concentrating on what many hail as the good job that he is doing do not appear to be working.
The decision by Omehia to go to court was seen in some circles as evidence that the cabal backing Chief Bekinbo Soberekon may indeed by losing hope in his ability to outstage Amaechi.
Now, the chicks have come to roost, and it is becoming clear for those who believe in God and in the rule of law that stopping Amaechi through the law courts may be a mission impossible.
Yet those who know the forces rallying against Amaechi and his team say they are becoming increasingly desperate, meaning that these men of power as some people here describe them will stop at nothing until they get their pound of flesh.
Only time will tell.
