KEY POINTS:

• The Rivers Assembly confirmed five nominees and rejected four others Monday after a televised screening that exposed petitions, document discrepancies and tax compliance failures.
• Charity Demua’s admission that she had not paid taxes since 2018 because she was “a politician” drew sharp rebuke from Speaker Martin Amaewhule during the session.
• The screening marks the first time the Rivers Assembly has vetted commissioner nominees since the end of emergency rule in the state in September 2025.

The Rivers State House of Assembly on Monday handed Governor Siminalayi Fubara a bruising result at the screening table, rejecting four of his nine Fubara commissioner nominees rejected after a televised session that ran more than two hours and turned repeatedly contentious.

Five nominees cleared the chamber: Tonye Bellgam, Prof. Temple Nwofor, Dr. Peters Nwagor, Lekue Kenneth and Sir Amairigha Edward Hart. The four that did not make the cut were Prof. Datonye Alasia, Tamuno Williams, TKD Amachree and Charity Demua.

Speaker Martin Amaewhule, who presided over the plenary, said the rejected nominees simply failed to demonstrate they were ready to serve.

“They have not been able to show this Assembly that they are indeed prepared to serve Rivers State,” he said.

A Nominee Who Said Politicians Do Not Pay Taxes

The session’s most striking moment came during the appearance of Demua, the only female nominee, who told lawmakers she had paid no taxes since 2018 because she was a politician without work.

Amaewhule pressed her directly, asking whether she had earned any income across eight years. Her responses stunned the chamber. The speaker told her flatly she was misleading the House.

Williams, a lawyer and former Okrika local government chairman, faced questions about public statements he made against the Assembly during the state’s political crisis. When asked to answer yes or no on whether he had misled the public, he declined. Amaewhule told him his silence was answer enough.

Petitions and Document Disputes Sealed the Others’ Fate

Amachree’s nomination collapsed under the weight of petitions. The House Committee on Information and Public Petitions disclosed that more than 15 complaints had been filed against him by the time screening began, prompting a unanimous decision to stand down his nomination.

Alasia, a professor of medicine and former deputy chief medical director at the University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital, ran into trouble over an allegedly altered birth certificate and missing tax clearance documents.

Fubara had forwarded the nine nominees to the Assembly on March 5, 2026, following the dissolution of the state executive council in February. Monday’s exercise was the first commissioner screening since emergency rule ended in Rivers State in September 2025, and the outcome of Fubara commissioner nominees rejected by the chamber signals that political tensions between the executive and legislature remain far from resolved.