Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers State has lampooned constitutional lawyer, Prof. Itse Sagay (SAN) for criticizing the Supreme Court judgment affirming his election.
Sagay, who is chairman of the Presidential Advisory Committee on Anti-Corruption, at the weekend in Warri, Delta State, described the Supreme Court’s decisions in Rivers and Akwa Ibom States as “very perverse”.
“Everybody knows that people like Wike climbed into the governorship seat (over) dead bodies and over bloods of human beings. There were no elections, they wrote the results, the evidence is there”, Mr. Sagay had said.
Reacting to the comment, the Rivers Commissioner for Information, Dr. Austin Tam-George, accused the lawyer of re-litigating a settled matter.
The statement reads: “Prof Itse Sagay, one of the most opportunistic enablers of the corrupt regime of Mr. Rotimi Amaechi in Rivers State, seems to have found the courage to step out of his closet.
“In a widely reported statement yesterday, Sagay launched a bitter and completely unwarranted attack on the justices of the Supreme Court judgment for affirming Nyesom Wike as the duly elected governor of Rivers Statement.
“Prof. Sagay alleged, without any shred of proof that ‘everybody knows that people like Wike climbed into the governorship seat over dead bodies and over blood of human beings. There were no elections, they wrote the results; the evidence is there’.
“For a trained lawyer, Prof Sagay has lost his sense of irony. He criticises the legally sound and unanimous judgment of the Supreme Court, by resorting to the silly and unsubstantiated hearsay mindlessly peddled by the APC.
“In the twilight of an unremarkable career, is Prof Sagay seeking to be the dubious originator of the sick jurisprudence of ‘Everybody knows’, even without evidence?
“Is the Supreme Court no longer supreme in its judgments? Why is Sagay re-litigating a settled matter in the streets in such a disgraceful manner?
“Prof Sagay may wish to re-read the history of the people of Rivers State. We never give up our sovereignty.
“We condemn this orchestrated campaign of calumny launched by the APC and its cowardly surrogates against Nigeria’s justice system, which is the bedrock of our evolving constitutional democracy.
“Working with other Nigerians and our sister states in the Niger Delta, the government and people of Rivers State will continue to defeat the dark political fundamentalism of the APC.
“We call on the international community to restrain the APC from its desperate attempts to politically dominate our people and plunder the resources of our land”.
