Vice Admiral Ibok-Ete Ibas, who was recently appointed as the sole administrator in Rivers state, has again shunned the House of Representatives Ad-Hoc Committee on Rivers State Oversight, as he failed to appear before them even after being invited for an interactive session.
Speaker Tajudeen Abbas had constituted and inaugurated the committee on April 15, 2025. The committee then scheduled its meeting to Thursday, April 17, and later rescheduled its meeting.
The sole administrator was invited to facilitate discussion on the governance activities in Rivers state since he assumed office.
However, Ibas, who was in Abuja on Thursday, April 24, for the National Economic Council meeting at the presidential villa, failed to appear for the rescheduled session. Vanguard reported that the committee, chaired by Rep. Julius Ihonvbere, had announced Thursday, April 24, as the rescheduled date for the meeting, which was first postponed on the request of the sole administrator. Unfortunately, Ibas did not appear and no communication was made to the committee in respect of that.
It was yet to be clear if the committee had sent an invitation or an acknowledgement, as details on the matter were yet to be known. The committee chairman, Ihonvbere, and other lawmakers left the Committee Room 301 of the House of Representatives complex as the Rivers’ sole administrator did not appear. They did not address journalists either, saying “no comment” when approached by journalists.
The committee then suspended the meeting between it and Ibas indefinitely, as the Rivers’ sole administrator did not appear for the conversation.
Recall that President Bola Tinubu had appointed Ibas as the sole administrator for Rivers state, after announcing the suspension of Governor Siminalayi Fubara, his deputy and the lawmakers in the state House of Assembly.
The president’s decision followed the declaration of a state of emergency in the state. The president invoked the constitutional ground over the absence of governance in the oil-rich state, due to the unending political turbulence in Rivers. Governor Fubara and his predecessor, now minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nyesom Wike, had been at loggerheads barely six months after the former resumed office over the control of the political structure in the state.
