RIVERS STATE JUDICIARY FAULTS RETIREMENT OF CHIEF MAGISTRATE EJIKE KING-GEORGE

More details have emerged about the exit of Chief Magistrate Ejike King-George from the Judiciary of Rivers State. Contrary to the claim by Chief Magistrate King-George that he resigned in protest against the imposition of a Sole Administrator under emergency rule in the state, the Chief Registrar of the Rivers State High Court, David Ihua-Maduenyi, said he was actually sent on compulsory retirement. Chief Magistrate Ejike King-George had in a letter which circulated on social media claimed that his voluntary retirement was informed largely by his discomfort with the recent appointment of a quasi-military administration to run the affairs of a modern state like Rivers. He said that the current type of governance system is not only alien but also runs antithetical to the hallowed profession as legal practitioners and adjudicators. The retired Chief Magistrate said having put in sixteen out of his twenty-two years of legal practice in the judiciary as a Magistrate under successive democratic administrations, he finds it difficult to work with the current setting, as doing so would amount to a tacit and naive acquiescence. But Chief Registrar David Ihua-Maduenyi while addressing a news conference in Port Harcourt, said Ejike King-George was compulsorily retired from service with effect from February 10, 2025 for disciplinary reasons, bothering specifically on continuous absence from duty without leave from August 25, 2023 till December, 2024. David Ihua-Maduenyi further claimed that Chief Magistrate EJIKE KING-GEORGE had appeared before a disciplinary panel which found him wanting and recommended that he retired voluntarily or face compulsory retirement. He said the attempt Ejike King-George to link his exit from service to the political situation in the state is not only contrived falsehood but a mischievous action calculated to deceive members of the public and attract undue sympathy and undeserved patronage.