VIDEO: President has no power to remove elected governor – Shettima

Vice-President Kashim Shettima on Thursday argued that the president of Nigeria has no constitutional power to remove an elected councillor, much more a governor.

Shettima spoke amid President Bola Tinubu’s controversial removal of Siminalayi Fubara, an elected governor of the opposition party, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in Rivers State.

Governor Simi Fubara of Rivers was on March 18, 2025, removed from office by the president.

The National Assembly later ratified the highly controversial move, after members allegedly accepted cash bribes from the president’s allies.

Fubara has been out of office ever since, with a retired military general acting in his stead.

Shettima, during a book launch in Abuja on Thursday afternoon, suggested there was no constitutional basis for a president to remove an elected governor in Nigeria, drawing from his experience when he was a governor to slam the perils of such extra-constitutional manoeuvres.

“Former President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan was floating the idea of removing this Borno governor (pointing at himself), and Aminu Waziri Tambuwal, the former Speaker of the House of Representatives, had the courage to tell the president: You don’t have the power to remove an elected councillor,” Mr Shettima said at the book launch of former attorney-general Bello Adoke.

Mr Shettima also commended Mr Adoke for using his role as the attorney-general at the time to thwart Mr Jonathan’s attempt to remove governors of northeastern states over insecurity in 2013.

“The president was still unconvinced, he mooted the idea at the Federal Executive Council, Mr Mohammed Adoke told the president: You do not have the power to remove a sitting governor,” the vice-president said. “They sought the opinion of another SAN in the cabinet, Kabiru Turaki, who also said: I am of the candid opinion of my senior colleagues. That was how the matter was laid to rest.”

“I want to thank you for the courage to forgive those who have offended you. In the last four years of the Jonathan government, I was the public enemy number one,” he added.

Shettima did not, however, directly address Mr Fubara’s removal, and has largely avoided airing his opinion on the legality of the removal since it was announced.

Watch video below: