Evans Bipi, a former member of the Rivers House of Assembly who made newspaper headlines in 2013 for describing Patience Jonathan, the wife of former President Goodluck Jonathan, as his Jesus Christ, is about to join Rivers State Executive Council as a commissioner.
According to a report by the News Agency of Nigeria, the Rivers House of Assembly confirmed Mr Bipi and three other nominees from Governor Siminalayi Fubara on Monday.
The other nominees are Israel Ngbuelu, Otamiri Ngubo and Benebo Anabraba.
The Speaker of the Assembly, Victor Oko-Jumbo, announced during plenary that the governor forwarded a letter containing their names for screening and confirmation.
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The House Leader, Sokari Good-boy, said that three of the nominees were former members of the House who “served diligently during their tenure” as lawmakers.
He, therefore, urged his colleagues to allow the trio to take a bow and go.
The House, however, screened the fourth nominee before confirming them all. The speaker later announced their confirmation and advised them to use their wealth of experience to develop the state.
Troublesome?
Mr Bipi easily came off as a troublesome politician during his days as a lawmaker when Rotimi Amaechi was the governor of Rivers State.
In 2023, about 11 years ago, because of his professed loyalty to then-President Goodluck Jonathan, Mr Bipi led four other lawmakers in the 32-member Rivers assembly to fight Mr Amaechi and the assembly’s leadership and, at some point, made a precarious claim to the assembly’s speakership.
Mr Bipi, allegedly backed by thugs, invaded the assembly chambers on 9 July 2013, causing violence and chaos in his attempt to impeach the speaker, an anomaly which attracted outrage from Nigerians.
He was captured in a video punching an unidentified person on the floor of the chamber.
“Myself punching? That is a framed work of Governor Rotimi Amaechi,” Mr Bipi had responded when asked about the video.
Mr Amaechi’s contesting and winning the Nigerian Governors’ Forum chairmanship election in 2011 against the wishes of the president and the then-ruling Peoples Democratic Party, including his suspected vice presidential ambition, pitched him against Mr Jonathan and his wife.
Wole Soyinka, the award-winning playwright, berated Mr Bipi and the four other lawmakers and said Mr Jonathan and his wife, Patience, should be held responsible for the then-political crisis in Rivers.
“My advice for her is that she learns to be a Lady first before being a First Lady,” Mr Soyinka, accompanied by a human rights lawyer, Femi Falana, SAN, retorted of Mrs Jonathan while addressing reporters in Lagos.
‘Patience Jonathan, my Jesus Christ’
While explaining his attitude and actions, Mr Bipi said at the time that he was fighting to remove Mr Amaechi because the governor “insulted” the First Lady, Mrs Jonathan, whom he said was his Jesus Christ on earth.
“Why must he be insulting my mother, my Jesus Christ on earth?” Mr Bipi angrily asked the fellow who hugged him to restrain him from further violence, as captured in the video.
When PREMIUM TIMES contacted Mr Bipi when the incident happened, he said the first lady is indeed his Jesus Christ on earth.
“I have no mother. I have no father. She (Mrs Jonathan) is my mother,” he said.
READ ALSO: Threatening to ‘burn down Rivers’ unacceptable to us – IGP to Fubara
It is unclear if Mr Bipi still holds such an opinion of Mrs Jonathan 11 years later.
It is also unclear what role he would play in the ongoing political fight between Governor Fubara and his predecessor, Nyesom Wike, the FCT minister. The former lawmaker has been attacking Mr Wike lately.
PREMIUM TIMES could not immediately reach Mr Bipi for his comment.
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