Rivers crisis: Perspectives beyond warring factions Penultimate Tuesday’s life threatening mace attack on Michael Chinda by a colleague at the Rivers State House of Assembly (RVHA) which heralded the current crisis in Rivers State is stillon the front burner of public debate. While that violent episode of the fractured Rivers Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) saga is still simmering, this week recorded fresh episodes in the diary of the crisis, coincidentally on another Tuesday. Patience, Amaechi and Jonathan Four Northern governors on a solidarity visit toGovernor Rotimi Amaechi in Port Harcourt were allegedly waylaid and stoned by placard-carrying youths, and their welcome party was not left out of the melee which occurred at thePort Harcourt International Airport. As with penultimate Tuesday’s chaos, the reported stoning of the governors fuelled another round of accusations and counter-accusations by both warring factions and theirsupporters. The visiting Northern governors, including Rabiu Kwankwanso of Kano, Sule Lamido of Jigawa, Babangida Aliyu of Niger and Murtala Nyako of Adamawa, after a closed-door meeting with Amaechi, issued a statement accusing the police of “partisanship in the show of shame at the RVHA.” The governors, who did not make much noise over the alleged stoning at the airport, however, joined calls for the redeployment of Police Commissioner Joseph Mbu from Rivers State to the extent of threatening to “reconsider our position on financial contribution by states towards funding of the Nigeria Police.” Rivers State Commissioner for Information andCommunication, Ibim Semenitari who witnessed all the fuss at the airport, said “what happened was worrisome. Amaechi waited for all his colleagues. They were not held hostage. The bus carrying the commissioners was damaged and some other vehicles smashed by the protesters.” Expectedly,Nyesom Wike’s faction in the crisis, reacting through Felix Obuah, the state PDP Chairman, denied that the protesters were mobilised on the platform of Wike’s political interest group, Grassroots Development Initiative (GDI). Obuah concluded that the protesters were Rivers people, expressing disappointment at the Amaechi government.“You should understand that the visitors who have failed to deal with the menace of Boko Haram up North have no substance to add to resolving the Rivers crisis and could only have come to heat up the polity.” Layman’s perspective Beyond the hard lines by both warring factions, the Rivers populace hardly classified the raging saga as right or wrong when Saturday Vanguard measured the street conscience on the crisis in the State Capital. Celestine Akpobari of Social Action believes “the PDP is confused. It is no question of one party being a saint and the other a villain. Nyesom Wike is part of Amaechi and both of them are products of Odili. Wike professed he was the Commander-in-Chief and took responsibility for the good, the bad and ugly that trailed the Amaechi struggle while he muscled himself into power. It does not benefit the ordinary man on the street if the relationship has suddenly gone awry between the two. “The other way to look at it is that the wife of the President, Patience Jonathan who is from Okrika, wants to produce the next governor ofthe state and no governor, particularly Amaechi, would allow that in the way we do politics in Nigeria. And the President thinks Amaechi’s 2015 ambition stands in the way of his own 2015 interests. The worry for Rivers indigenes is that if PDP members want to kill one another, they are very free to do so. But they should notallow it swallow the businesses and social livesof the people. Already, people are worried.” Like Akpobari, Frank Anwusonye of the Nigerian Democratic Awareness Forum said “I don’t side anybody. What is happening is a welcome development to the extent that it exposes the slavery Rivers people have been under, given the lawless and imperious posturing of its leaders. The PDP has a culture of vindictiveness and lawlessness. While they were united, the warring factions had enjoyed taming the institutions and resources of government to repress the opposition and critical populace. Pitted against themselves, they are finding it difficult having business as usual. “I give you a glaring instance of the slavery wehave been through. The ruling PDP in Rivers is so zealous in sustaining a 100% PDP state from the local government to state level to the extent that in Oyigbo, an All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA) councillor-elect has been subdued from occupying the office after winning the council election in 2011, includingtwo emanating re-runs against the PDP opponent in the first quarter of this year.
Posted on: Mon, 22 Jul 2013 02:56:46 +0000
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