<\/p>\n
By Macderson Brown<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Austin Ezekiel-Hart, during the six-month emergency rule in Rivers State (imposed in early 2025 amid a political crisis, leading to the appointment of Vice Admiral Ibok-\u00c9t\u00e8 Ibas (rtd) as Sole Administrator), faced significant pressures to compromise civil service due process and engage in actions that flouted established rules and ethical standards.<\/p>\n Unlike some other Permanent Secretaries who aided or supported illegalities \u2014 such as undermining governance procedures and prioritizing political directives over legality, Ezekiel-Hart refused to yield.<\/p>\n He stood firmly by his professional integrity, defending his superior (Governor Siminalayi Fubara) in a lawful and principled manner, even as the Emergency administration sought to override standard protocols.<\/p>\n This defiance was not overt rebellion but a steadfast commitment to truth, fairness, and civil service values, resisting any directive that would violate the law, regardless of its source.<\/p>\n Governor Fubara explicitly commended this during Ezekiel-Hart’s swearing-in on October 3, 2025, stating it was the reason for his merit-based elevation to Permanent Secretary, Government House, emphasizing that, “you chose to be a professional” amid the chaos.<\/p>\n This act of upholding legality served as a counter to the broader instability, where court challenges (at least five cases) contested the Sole Administrator’s powers and actions, including injunctions preventing his full resumption.<\/p>\n Brown sent in this piece from Bonny<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Macderson Brown Austin Ezekiel-Hart, during the six-month emergency rule in Rivers State (imposed in early 2025 amid a political crisis, leading to the appointment of Vice Admiral Ibok-\u00c9t\u00e8 Ibas (rtd) as Sole Administrator), faced significant pressures to compromise civil service due process and engage in actions that flouted established rules and ethical standards.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17943,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17945","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-opinion-and-columns"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/deepstrataenergy.com\/phmundial\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17945","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/deepstrataenergy.com\/phmundial\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/deepstrataenergy.com\/phmundial\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deepstrataenergy.com\/phmundial\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deepstrataenergy.com\/phmundial\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17945"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/deepstrataenergy.com\/phmundial\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17945\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deepstrataenergy.com\/phmundial\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17943"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/deepstrataenergy.com\/phmundial\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deepstrataenergy.com\/phmundial\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deepstrataenergy.com\/phmundial\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}