Amaechi should resign or apologise – Rivers PDP Chair THE Majority Leader of the Rivers State House of Assembly was recently declared wanted by the police. Do you think the police took the right decision? The declaration was long overdue because from the clips we all watched, Chidi Lloyd was almost committing murder. Despite that, he went down and pretended. You can see his clothes. There is nothing that shows that he was hit by anybody. But instead of showing remorse, he ran away. The police are expected to call him to give his own version of the story. But he is nowhere to be found and that is why he has been declared wanted. The decision of the police is right. The crisis in the state appears to be intractable. What challenges is your party facing in resolving the crisis? By the special grace of God, the crisis is not insurmountable. The crisis has lingered up to this extent because of the attitude of Governor Rotimi Amaechi who has refused to listen to the voice of reason. If he (Amaechi) does the right thing, we would not have any problem. The PDP as a party has no single problem. Whatever problem you are seeing in the state today is as a result of the governor’s leadership style, his divide-and- rule system. It is not good. He (Amaechi) is a product of the judiciary. The judiciary gave him the mandate, but up till now, he has refused to recognise that. Today, he is blaming the judiciary that he had benefitted from. The issue of Obio/Akpor is also another aspect of illegality and in all these, the governor knows the right thing to do and I repeat that I, as the party leader, have been praying for peace and by the grace of God, there must be peace. But you have always preached that the party is supreme. Yes, the party is supreme. But in several ways, Governor Amaechi has behaved in a way to show that he is above the PDP. He has addressed the opposition parties and told them that they should rise up and challenge the PDP. He has also had several meetings with the opposition against his own party that brought him to power. He has made so many statements against the party and he has not also shown respect for the PDP at the state level. As a governor, the party that brought him to power has written to him severally, which he turned down. He is rather sponsoring the opposition. Not only that, the governor is funding the state exco of the state PDP that was dissolved. Amaechi is still paying them indirectly and mobilising them against the current and authentic state exco. Four northern governors visited Rivers State recently and some youths went on a protest against such visit. What is your view on such protest? They (four northern governors) have no reason for the frequent visits to the state. Both the governors and Prof. Wole Soyinka should stop visiting the state. They have enough problems to solve in their different states. The issue of Boko Haram has been a serious problem in this nation. We have not heard them taking any decision to curb the excesses of Boko Haram in their states. Even in the South-West, we have so many problems and Wole Soyinka has not addressed them. In Ekiti, people were seriously beaten, but Wole Soyinka has never addressed such issues. What is the interest they have in Rivers State? Their frequent visit to Rivers State is fuelling rather than solving the problem. The Senate has just set up a panel. It (senate committee) has not come up with its report. They (northern governors) came to Rivers and said (Joseph) Mbu must go. They (northern governors) are clamouring for state police. Are they not trying to create more problems than solve the ones on the ground? They did not come to sympathise with us; they came to milk us dry. They know that we have the resources. What exactly do you mean by selfish interest? The visit of the northern governors is not for the interest of the state. It is rather for the interest of their friend, who is Amaechi. After the meeting of the northern governors with Amaechi, you could see them boasting that it is the turn of the North to produce the President because they have the support of the likes of Amaechi, who has a personal interest. He is using our money, our resources to sponsor All Progressive Congress and others. You are aware that the state governor has been frequenting Lagos and other states. Is Bola Tinubu the leader of PDP? Governor Babatunde Fashola, who sponsored his court matter on the Nigeria Governors’ Forum election, of the PDP? Just as I am feeling, that is how so many other youths are feeling. So, if they protest against some governors coming to the state to create problems, they (youths) have the freedom of expression. You led some stakeholders of the PDP in the state to visit the President recently and you raised some issues against the governor. Do you think the governor should leave the PDP? I am not praying that the governor should leave the party. I am not also praying that he should stay to create more problems. If he chooses to leave the party, he is free, if he chooses to stay, he knows what to do. What do you think he should do if he chooses to stay? He should apologise for the wrongs he has done if he wants to stay and I am ready to forgive him. The party is also ready to forgive him. Although I have written to the party to take a disciplinary action against him, if he shows enough remorse, I will as well plead on his behalf. He is our brother, he is our son; he is our governor. What is your view on the fight among lawmakers in the state House of Assembly? It is very shameful. The Assembly members were doing their thing. I think it was aggravated by the governor’s visit to that place with his Aide-de-Camp and his chief of staff. They went there when they noticed that the people they trusted have left them to support Evans Bipi and a successful impeachment process was carried out. So, when they were informed that things had fallen apart and it was no longer the way they thought, the governor mobilised his ADC, Chief Security Officer, everybody to the hallowed chambers and what happened there was a free-for-all. His personnel beat up a lawmaker almost to a stupor. You can see the ADC, you can see the orderly; you can see all of them doing that under the watch of the governor. If not for God, that lawmaker could have lost his life. We heard about the move by five lawmakers to remove the Speaker in a House of 32 members. Do you think that is right? There is no way only five lawmakers can remove a Speaker in the House of 32 members. Maybe the truth has not been told. From all what we gathered, the majority removed the Speaker. After the successful removal and the subsequent address by the ‘Speaker,’ Bipi, the governor, who was not comfortable with this, now mobilised people to the House. But there is no way five people can remove a Speaker in a House that has 32 people. The Speaker, Bipi, told us that the House was duly seated and he had the majority who removed the Speaker (Otelemaba Amachree). Again, during the NGF election where we have PDP governors in the majority, the governor that had 16 votes was recognised as the winner against another governor that got 19 votes. How would reconcile this with the norms of democracy? That is what they told us. I was not there. Governor Jonah Jang said there was no voting and the purported 19 persons Amaechi is claiming were all in the clip and they said no, all of us are solidly behind Jang. But, Amaechi is saying that there was an election and they voted for him. But I am not a governor. If I were to be a governor, maybe I would have been able to comment on the governors’ forum election. I don’t know what their constitution says. But the PDP in Rivers congratulated Governor Jang of Plateau State who got 16 votes for emerging as the chairman of NGF. Before the election, we knew how the election used to go. It is always by consensus. Before then, the northern governors had already presented Jang as their consensus candidate. So, their going into the house was a formality. We congratulated him because right in the house, Jang said they had declared him the new NGF chairman on consensus just as it used to be in the past
Posted on: Sun, 21 Jul 2013 16:59:51 +0000
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