By Suoyo EkuboÂ
Following the Rivers State House of Assembly Protest on the recent appointments made by the State Governor Siminalayi Fubara, the Hon. Commissioner for information and communication Warisenibo Joe Johnson, has reiterated the executive authority of the state governor to appoint anyone in acting capacity.
Hon. Warisenibo Joe Johnson, stated this while speaking on some key issues bordering on the Rivers State Government at the Garden City Radio Station on Friday morning.
He stated “the governor of a state is Chief Executive Officer and he is head of government in the state. There are three tiers of government and the governor is the rallying point, the others just share equal status. The governor has the right to appoint anybody on acting capacity on commissions and boards which had to go to National Assembly or Rivers State House of Assembly as the case may be. I’m using National Assembly because the President also has the power. Recall, the days of former President Buhari, we had Ibrahim Magu as acting Chairman of EFCC, this is a Commission. Local Government Service Commission is a state commission, it means that the laws that document commissions are almost similar. It means that if Buhari can appoint Chairman for EFCC, Governor Fubara can also appoint a Chairman of a Commission.
“When President Tinubu came he appointed acting inspector general of police, EFCC, Chief of Army staff, and FIRS those appointments went to the National Assembly after a while. He use the what is called fiduciary responsibility -to hold something in trust in acting capacity. If it requires the name of the appointee to be submitted at the assembly and the person gets cleared he/she now becomes a substantive general manager, or Chairman. it’s common practice in governance,” he said.
