By: Akanimo Sampson
The political assault boats of Transportation Minister, Chibuike Amaechi, in the Rivers State wing of the All Progressives Congress (APC) are currently attacking Governor Nyesom Wike on his administration’s claim of an underground plot to topple his government.
Before 2015, Wike and Amaechi, both prominent Ikwerre sons have been locked in a worrisome political antagonism. The rift between them seems to be worsening every passing day.
The previous Tuesday, the state’s Information and Communications Commissioner, Paulinus Nsirim, a church pastor, ruptured the relative peace in the troubled state with a seeming unguarded claim that the Wike administration uncovered a plot by some Rivers people in Abuja to prevail on the Federal Government to stage an emergency rule in the state.
While claiming that the unnamed Abuja political lords were planning to cause crisis in the state to warrant the declaration of a state of emergency, Nsirim added, “these persons have been making attempts to achieve this goal since 2015, but they have never succeeded because of God’s intervention. They did everything within their powers to ensure that the 2019 Governorship Election results were not announced but also failed.
“As the build up for the 2023 elections and jostle for Presidential and Vice-Presidential tickets is gathering momentum, they want to use COVID-19 to create a crisis as if the State is at war with the Federal Government. They have decided to create unnecessary tension as if indigenes of Ahoada, Eleme and Port Harcourt are fighting with Northerners not to carry out their legitimate businesses.
“Bandits have been killing innocent people in Sokoto, Katsina, Zamfara and Kaduna States and indigenes of these states, no matter their political differences, are working together to protect their states. But here in Rivers, instead of supporting our efforts, these Abuja politicians are busy looking for a State of Emergency because they want to acquire power.’’
The commissioner claimed that one of the respected APC chieftains alerted the Wike administration of their plan to use COVID-19 to launch into the politics of the state, adding, “this is what we see in the lives of ungodly, dangerous and power hungry people who claim to love the state. After their clandestine meetings they have voted huge sums of money to entice and recruit gullible persons to carry out their plan.’’
Now, the captain of the Amaechi political assault soldiers in the APC, Eze Chukwuemeka Eze, is accusing Wike and his agents of allegedly trying to enforce state of emergency on the big oil and gas state by using Executive Orders 1 and 6, 2020 as the enabling instruments.
According to the APC, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) administration is exploiting the two Orders to violate and abuse the rights to liberty and freedom from arbitrary arrest and detention, to a fair trial, and to property, contrary to Nigeria’s international human rights obligations.
APC is accusing Wike of allegedly subverting the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and for using COVID-19 as a pretext to step up repression and systematic abuses against the people of Rivers.
In a seeming daring statement, Eze said the Wike administration is “carrying out mass arbitrary detention, mistreatment, forced evictions, and imposing pervasive controls on daily life, high-handedness and crude method in administering the state where hotels are demolished by the whims and caprices of the governor, and vehicles are about to be auctioned out, if not for the courts.’’
Continuing, he said, “the Wike administration is, and has remained confused on what to do, when, where, and how to deliver in every given task associated with governance, and this has halted development since 2015 and is currently affecting the fight against the novel corona virus.
“No serious government will abandon its responsibility of piloting the ship of state at a time as critical as now, just to embark on a wild goose chase,’’ and berated the governor for always allegedly calling out the good people of the state to inciting machinations and idle alarms.
According to him, the governor and his image makers are portraying themselves as people who have lost every sense of sanity with claims that are “usually grossly unsubstantiated, unfathomable and cannot be taken seriously.
“By their frequent alarms about Rivers people in Abuja, the governor and his caucus hiding in the Rivers State Government House have continued to show morbid fear of the APC leaders both in Rivers and in Abuja. He has shown that he dreads any APC leader he cannot pocket like he pocketed some people now here in the state.’’
He said APC is challenging the state government to reveal the identity of those responsible for the alleged plot and where and when such plan was made if they want to be taken seriously or remain mute and hide their faces in shame.
“The Wike administration has simply turned the Rivers people into weekly spectators of idle orchestra who are called out very often to wolf-crying shenanigans. The governor uses every single incident to pick a fight and uses the people as pawns on his idle political chess game and as shields in his endless journey in search of his ubiquitous Trojan horse,’’ Eze says.
