The House of Representatives on Thursday approved President Bola Tinubu’s controversial emergency proclamation in Rivers, giving crucial legal backing to a decision deemed unconstitutional by scholars nationwide. 

The House decision came via a voice vote, with Speaker Tajudeen Abbas saying 243 members were present.  

The process has now been moved to the Senate for final ratification. 

The Gazette reported earlier on Thursday, ahead of the vote, that the president’s allies had paid cash bribes to lawmakers to pass the agenda despite having no constitutional basis. 

At least 11 legislators from both chambers confirmed they had been approached to take bribes.

Thunderous “ayes” from 243 members of the Green chamber greeted the motion to approve Mr Tinubu’s Tuesday proclamation of a state of emergency in Rivers.

The lawmakers urged Mr Tinubu not to wait for the six months of Rivers Governor Siminalayi Fubara to elapse before resolving the matter.

Mirian Odinaka of Okigwe constituency (Imo) said she supported the proclamation and asked for a quick resolution of the impasse. 

Another lawmaker objected that the retired naval chief, Ekwe Ibas, tapped by Mr Tinubu to oversee Rivers affairs, should not report to the Federal Executive Council but to the National Assembly. 

Mr Fubara’s six-month suspension shocked many Nigerians, given that he had yet to be impeached. Legal experts like Inibehe Effiong said only the Supreme Court could vindicate the governor—provided he challenges the decision in court.

Mr Effiong stated that the Supreme Court has the mandate to resolve the Rivers case within a month and determine whether Mr Tinubu’s emergency rule declaration is legal or unconstitutional.

For now, the matter will proceed to the Red Chamber, where senators will vote to approve or reject Mr Tinubu’s request for ratification.

The emergency proclamation on Tuesday night sent shockwaves throughout the country as Mr Fubara had not yet been impeached. Mr Tinubu’s activation of Section 305 of the Nigerian Constitution to remove an elected governor was widely deemed an overreach of his presidential powers.

However, attorney general of the federation Lateef Fagbemi, a senior lawyer, insisted that the president made the right constitutional call threatening that Mr Tinubu will whip any recalcitrant governor into line. The Nigerian Constitution Section 305 allows the president to declare emergency powers over a state to restore order. 

Still, it does not say the president can remove existing democratic institutions and replace them with an emergency military rule. 

Some governors have expressed the potential to approach the Supreme Court to interpret the president’s decision and potentially nullify it.