The Court of Appeal sitting in Abuja has ruled against a judgement barring the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) from releasing monthly federal allocations to Rivers State.

In a split ruling on Friday, two of the appellate court justices ruled in favour of the Rivers state government while one ruled against it.

In October, a Federal High Court in Abuja barred the CBN from disbursing further monthly allocations to the Rivers state government over alleged constitutional violations by Governor Siminalayi Fubara.

Justice Joyce Abdulmalik, in his ruling, noted that Mr Fubara’s presentation of the 2024 budget to a four-member House of Assembly was against constitutional protocol.

He further said that Rivers State has since January received and spent allocations based on an unlawful budget, tagging such as unconstitutional.

However, Mr Fubara approached the Court of Appeal sitting in Abuja to overturn the judgement.

The governor, through his team of lawyers led by Yusuf Ali, SAN, prayed to a three-member panel of the appellate court led by Justice Hamma Barka to set aside a subsisting court order, saying the judgement was given in bad faith.