Support rally stirs Ebola controversy The pro-President Goodluck Jonathan rally, organised in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital, by the Transformation Ambassadors of Nigeria, has opened up another round of controversy in the state, writesCHUKWUDI AKASIKE The rally organised by the Transformation Ambassadors of Nigeria in Rivers State, the headquarters of the South-South geopolitical zone penultimate Saturday was one of the latest activities aimed at encouraging President Goodluck Jonathan to run for another term in 2015. At the rally, which was attended by many Peoples Democratic Party bigwigs, the Minister of State for Education, Mr. Nyesom Wike, said 4,150,000 signatures were obtained from the South-South region in support of the call on Jonathan to vie for a second term in office. But no sooner had the rally ended than it started to generate reactions from different quarters, hinging largely on the Ebola Virus Disease. Even before the rally held, a group of non-governmental organisations in the Niger Delta, under the auspices of Doing Democracy Movement, had, in a statement, disagreed with the timing of the rally at the Liberation Stadium in the state capital. The Convener of the DDM, Mr. Anyakwe Nsirimovu, argued that holding the event at a time the prevalence of Ebola was confirmed in Rivers was unnecessary and called on the President to stop the planned event. Nsirimovu had argued that holding such an event could further spread the dreaded Ebola virus. “We have been made aware of the Transformation Ambassadors of Nigeria South-South campaign rally to campaign for your second term. The Minister for Health and the Rivers State Government announced that the deadly Ebola Virus Disease has hit Rivers State, with one dead and scores of others quarantined. As we have all come to know, Ebola has become a major challenge to public health and is now a critical concern to our nation, West Africa and indeed the world. We are all aware of the informed professional medical advice on the need to avoid body contacts, which is basically the easiest and commonest form of transmission of the Ebola virus. “As the Federal Government and other relevant bodies like the World Health Organisation, Doctors Without Borders, and the United States Embassy, join hands with the state in combating and containing this outbreak in Rivers State, we are using this platform to plead with you and all concerned, to call off the planned campaign rally by TAN in Port Harcourt, in the interest of adhering to the advice of avoiding body contact, which you know is inevitable if the rally is allowed to hold,” Nsirimovu said in the statement. Nsirimovu, who is also the Executive Director of Institute for Human Rights and Humanitarian Law, maintained that the call on the President to stop the TAN campaign had nothing to do with politics and added that the right to health of the Nigerian public was far more important than any form of politicking. Following the TAN rally in Port Harcourt, the All Progressives Congress said President Goodluck Jonathan should be held responsible if the Ebola virus spread farther than it had in the country. A statement signed by the National Publicity Secretary of the party, Lai Mohammed, quoted the party as saying, “Never before has a president of a country sabotaged his own administration’s policy and endangered the lives of his compatriots as President Jonathan has done over the issue of Ebola.” According to the party, the same president who declared a national emergency on Ebola and advised against large gatherings to prevent the spread of the virus was the first to flout his advice by his failure to stop the rally by the TAN in Port Harcourt. It added that the rally took place few days after the Ebola virus was detected in the city and at a time that contact-tracing was going on. “On the altar of political desperation, President Jonathan put the lives of Nigerians in danger. In order to realise his ambition for re-election. President Jonathan has shown he is ready to sacrifice as many lives of Nigerians as possible. There goes the president’s statement that his political ambition is not worth the blood of any Nigerian. This president simply says what he doesn’t mean. “As we said in our statement of August 28 (2014), calling on President Jonathan to halt the TAN rallies, especially the one in Port Harcourt, could anyone guarantee that none of those who have had contact with the medical doctor that died of the disease would not attend the rally? That is why we are calling on Nigerians to hold the President responsible if Ebola spreads more than it has in the country,” the APC statement read. Also, The Rivers wing of the APC had earlier described the TAN rally in Port Harcourt as a firing squad against the people.
Posted on: Sun, 07 Sep 2014 05:50:54 +0000
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