YENAGOA– The Bayelsa State House of Assembly has defied a subsisting court order by summoning the Executive Chairman of Sagbama Local Government Council, Hon. Alice Tangi Allen, to appear before it unfailingly on Tuesday 18 August, despite an injunction restraining all parties from taking further action.
Justice D.E. Adokeme, sitting as vacation judge at the Yenagoa Judicial Division of the Bayelsa High Court, had granted an ex parte application brought by Mrs Allen on 10 August 2026, ordering that all parties “maintain the status quo, pending the hearing and determination of the motion on notice filed contemporaneously with this application”.
The order was made in connection with Mrs Allen’s suit against the Government of Bayelsa State, the Speaker of the Bayelsa State House of Assembly, the Sagbama Legislative Council, the Leader of the Council and the Attorney-General of Bayelsa State, all of whom are listed as the 1st to 6th defendants.
Although all defendants have been served with the orders and proceedings – including, in some cases, through substituted means via the Attorney-General – the Assembly appears determined to press ahead with its summons.
The case is billed for expedited hearing on 20 August 2026, a date which the Assembly now seems poised to circumvent with its earlier summons for 18 August.
Allegations against Mrs Allen include spending council funds without proper approval and failing to submit her budget for the year. There have also been claims, described as unfounded, that she used council money to fund the activities of the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC).
Notably, while Mrs Allen is a longstanding ally of the NDC National Leader, Senator Henry Seriake Dickson, she has declined to join the NDC and remains in the PDP, on whose platform she was elected Chairman. Many political observers believe her real offence may be her refusal to join Governor Douye Diri and his loyalists in decamping to the All Progressives Alliance (APC).
This, they suggest, is likely the true reason the hawks in the Assembly want her impeached or forced to resign.
In a letter to the Bayelsa State Assembly, served on all six defendants, Mrs Allen’s lawyer, Michael Jonathan Numa, SAN, said his client could not honour the summons – not because the House lacks the power to summon her, but because appearing before it would amount to disobedience of the court order, even though the Assembly’s summons itself already constitutes a defiance of that same order.
The letter, served on the Assembly on 17 August 2026 and copied to the Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice, was accompanied by a certified true copy of the High Court order made on 10 August 2026, together with the writ of summons and other originating processes.
Part of Mr Numa’s letter read: “We therefore respectfully urge the Honourable House to be pleased to stand down the invitation of 18 August 2026 and to stay further steps on this subject matter pending the hearing and determination of the Motion on Notice fixed for 20 August 2026 and thereafter, the substantive suit.
“Our client undertakes without reservation to appear before the Honourable House upon being duly invited, once the court has pronounced on the pending applications, and she remains willing at any time to attend on any matter falling outside the subject matter of the suit.”
Mrs Allen is reportedly outside Bayelsa State on medical grounds.
