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Tag: Amechi

  • Two traders arraigned for allegedly damaging man’s eye

    Two traders arraigned for allegedly damaging man’s eye

    The accused– Amechi, 30, and Osha, 20 — who reside at Abimbola Estate in Ogun and Dalemo, Alakuko, Lagos respectively, are being tried for breach of peace, conspiracy and assault.

    According to the prosecutor, Insp. Ezekiel Ayorinde, the accused committed the offences on May 30 in Alakuko on the Lagos-Abeokuta Expressway.

    He said that the accused conspired and physically assaulted a co-trader, Mr. Busayo Ogundipe, and injured his right eye.

    “The accused assaulted the complainant by beating him up and damaging his right eye.”

    Ayorinde said the accused displayed his loaves of bread at the complainant’s stand and when the complainant came and asked him to go to his stand, he descended on him.

    “When the complainant asked him to go back to his stand, he refused.

    “While he was trying to carry the bread to his stand, the accused grabbed him and beat him up and his friend, Osha, also joined him.”

    The prosecutor said the complainant lost an Infinix phone valued at N65,000 and N25,000 cash in the process.

    The offences contravened Sections 169, 173 and 411 of the Criminal Law of Lagos State, 2015 (Revised).

    The accused pleaded innocence of the offences and were granted bail in the sum of N50,000 each with two sureties each in like sum.

    The Magistrate, Mrs. O.J. Awope, adjourned the case until June 23 for mention.

  • Amaechi…Rebel with a cause

    Amaechi…Rebel with a cause

    When the Presidency decided to take on Rivers State Governor Rotimi Amaechi, it perhaps did not bargain for what it is getting. Amaechi has proved to be a fighter. His appearance at the Bori rally of the Save Rivers Movement (SRM) has further confirmed his image as ‘a rebel with a cause’, writes Bisi Olaniyi, Port Harcourt

    The battleline was long drawn between the pro-Governor Rotimi Amaechi’s Save Rivers Movement (SRM) and the Grassroots Development Initiative (GDI), which has as grand patron, the Supervising Minister of Education, Chief Nyesom Wike.

    GDI leaders and members have been moving round the 23 local government areas of Rivers State with full police protection and without attack by militants, unlike the rallies of the SRM.

    Wike insisted that the GDI leaders were moving round the state for thanksgiving and inauguration of the wards and LGAs’ executives of the GDI, as well as sensitising the members of the socio-political organisation and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to support President Goodluck Jonathan, whenever he declares to seek re-election.

    The Chief of Staff, Government House, Port Harcourt, Chief Tony Okocha, who doubles as the Political Adviser to Amaechi, who is the Chairman of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF), insisted that Wike was busy with his 2015 governorship campaign and using President Goodluck Jonathan as a smokescreen.

    Okocha stated that Wike is too desperate to be the next governor of Rivers state, in spite of being an Ikwerre like Amaechi. The NGF chairman is from Ubima in Ikwerre LGA, while the minister of state for education hails from Rumueprikom in Obio/Akpor council.

    The Rivers political crisis actually commenced when the youthful Rivers governor declared that it would not be proper for another Ikwerre person to succeed him, having been the Speaker of the Rivers House of Assembly for eight years (1999 – 2007) and to be governor for eight years in 2015.

    Amaechi prefers somebody from another ethnic group or senatorial district to succeed him in 2015, which the supervising minister of education was not comfortable with.

    Wike is a former Chief of Staff, Government House, Port Harcourt and doubled as the Director-General of Amaechi Campaign Organisation in 2011, before the Rivers governor recommended him to President Jonathan for appointment as a minister, which he (Wike) denied in a recent interview in his newly-built mansion, behind the seat of power in the Rivers state capital, when his friends and associates organised for him a surprise birthday party.

    The Supervising Minister of Education is a two-term Chairman of Obio/Akpor Local Government Area and an ex-National President of the Association of Local Governments of Nigeria (ALGON).

    Amaechi told journalists in Port Harcourt that he facilitated the re-election of Wike as Obio/Akpor LG council chairman, declaring that his people rejected him for second term for poor performance, arrogance and lack of respect for elders, but the governor said he personally intervened and had to plead with the people to allow him.

    The NGF chairman maintained that the minister of state for education betrayed him, in spite of his contributions to his political career, especially when President Jonathan rejected his (Wike’s) ministerial nomination, for not being well known to him the President), with Amaechi still vouching for him (Wike).

    Wike, however, insisted that he got the ministerial appointment on merit and not based on Amaechi’s nomination or efforts, wondering why as the governor’s Chief of Staff and Director-General of his campaign organisation, he could be made just a Minister of State, instead of a substantive minister, if the governor was that influential.

    He said Amaechi should be grateful to him, for fully supporting him to be the Rivers governor on October 26, 2007, after the landmark judgment of the Supreme Court the previous day, which sacked his cousin, Sir Celestine Omehia.

    He noted that with the ex-president Olusegun Obasanjo declaring that Amaechi’s governorship candidature had K-leg, at the Liberation Stadium, Port Harcourt in early 2007, while presenting PDP’s flags to other governorship candidates; it became obvious that the ex-speaker must fight hard to regain his stolen mandate.

    Trouble started brewing when Okocha (chief of staff); the President of the SRM, Charles Aholu, a legal practitioner; and the group’s Coordinator, Igo Aguma, a former member of the House of Representatives from Rivers state; began a week earlier to announce on many radio and television stations, including newspaper advertisements, that Obio/Akpor LG rally of SRM would hold on January 12.

    Since Wike is from Obio/Akpor LGA, political watchers were actually envisaging crisis, for the minister of state for education to prove that he is still in charge of the politics of the council and to impress President Jonathan and his wife, Dame Patience, an indigene of Okrika, headquarters of Okrika LGA of Rivers state.

    On January 11, the canopies, chairs, tables and podium had been arranged at the playground of the Rivers State College of Arts and Science, Rumuola, Port Harcourt, to avoid any hitch during the elaborate SRM inauguration for Obio/Akpor Local Government Area of the following day.

    As early as 4 am, policemen, on the orders of Mbu, invaded with Armoured Personnel Carriers (APCs), many patrol vehicles and battle-ready personnel, the Rivers College of Arts and Science and upturned the canopies, chairs, tables and podium, dispersing with teargas and gunshots, the people who were putting finishing touches to the arrangements.

    Okocha and the representative of the Rivers South-east Senatorial District, Magnus Ngei Abe, were contacted by their associates on the ground and they quickly moved to the venue of the rally, with the dualised road already barricaded by the police and teargas canisters still being shot, but they were undeterred.

    Overzealous policemen, however, shot twice on the chest with rubber bullets, Abe, the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Petroleum (Downstream), while the chief of staff was also injured by the policemen on the leg and still unable to walk very well, with worshippers and passersby having heavy dose of teargas and disturbing noise of sporadic gunshots on the Sunday.

    The pro-Amaechi’s rally was later relocated to the Civic Centre at Rumuigbo, Port Harcourt, on the dualised and ever-busy Ikwerre Road, with policemen again taking over the new venue and scattering the white plastic chairs, with passersby forced to raise their hands.

    In order to show their displeasure over the action of the policemen, youths in Rumuigbo made bonfires on Ikwerre Road, especially at Obi Wali Road Junction, which was littered with broken bottles, stones and other missiles, but policemen later cleared them.

    Amaechi was billed to attend the SRM’s disrupted rally at the Rivers College of Arts and Science or the Civic Centre at Rumuigbo.

    Abe, 49, from Bera-Ogoni in Gokana Local Government Area, who is an ex-Secretary to the Rivers State Government (SSG), is still recuperating in a London hospital.

    Rivers Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), Ahmad Mohammad, a Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP), however, claimed that members of a rival group (GDI/PDP) invaded the Rivers College of Arts and Science, while engaging the SRM members in a supremacy battle and policemen decided to disperse them with teargas, to prevent the breakdown of law and order, which the chief of staff described as false and misleading.

    Okocha said: “About few minutes past 12 am on Sunday (January 12), I received a call from somebody, highly placed, informing me that the Rivers Commissioner of Police (Mbu) had been reached by the Supervising Minister for Education, Nyesom Wike, and that he had accepted a huge sum of money to dislodge our people and I could not place it.

    “SRM is an organisation that insists that Rivers State must be saved, out to salvage the state from political buccaneers, who want to put Rivers State into their pockets. That is what we are doing. We are in the business of sensitising our people from LGA to LGA.

    “You are aware of a group called the GDI. The members go through all the LGAs with convoys of police, giving them all kinds of protection, including the Commissioner of Police (Mbu). He (CP) is always in the convoys, providing security for them and ensuring that all the things they do in the LGAs are trouble free.”

    The supervising minister of education, in his reaction, stated that persons dragging his name to the police’s action should be ignored and that the SRM’s rallies were not enough proof of the popularity of Amaechi or to win elections in the Niger Delta state.

    Wike was earlier the same January 12 at the Port Harcourt International Airport, Omagwa, to receive Dame Patience Jonathan, who was travelling to Bayelsa State.

    A former Petroleum Minister, Prof. Tam David-West (from Buguma-Kalabari, the headquarters of Asari-Toru Local Government Area ), expressed worry over the worsening political climate in his Rivers state, while condemning the shooting of Abe, whom he described as a complete gentleman, whom he said never deserved the treatment he got from the police.

    The lawyer to the SRM, Ken Atsuwete, a renowned human rights activist, insisted that the police were informed in writing of the group’s rallies in Obio/Akpor and Khana LGAs, while hinting that the Bori rally would go on as planned, on January 19, which became worse.

    Militants backed by policemen, amid sporadic gunshots, on January 19, disrupted the pro-Amaechi’s SRM rally again at Bori, the traditional headquarters of Ogoni land and the seat of Khana Local Government Area of Rivers state.

    The Secretary to the Rivers State Government (SSG), George Feyii, an Ogoni; Okocha and many allies of Amaechi narrowly escape death, with their vehicles riddled with bullets and some were vandalised.

    Two persons were feared shot dead by the rampaging militants, who started shooting from 4 am and took over the venue of the SRM rally at the playground of the All Saints’ Anglican Church, Bori, not far from the Rivers State Polytechnic, Bori-Ogoni.

    The NGF chairman, who planned to attend the SRM’s January 19 disrupted rally at Bori, later in an interview at the Government House, Port Harcourt, after inspecting the shot and vandalised vehicles, declared that President Jonathan’s government was worse than the regime of the late dictator, Gen. Sani Abacha.

    The Rivers governor also accused that Federal Government of desperation over the 2015 elections, declaring that President Jonathan wanted to win at all costs, even if all the human beings die.

    Amaechi insisted that the disrupted Bori rally of the SRM must be repeated on Saturday, January 25, while declaring that he would attend and available to be shot.

    Some Rivers commissioners, Amaechi’s allies, top Rivers government officials, leaders and supporters of the SRM had to scale the high fence and run into the bush to prevent being shot by the rampaging militants, with their vehicles abandoned and vandalised, while Bori people and students scampered to safety.

    Police, however, gave protection to the rally by the GDI at Degema, the headquarters of Degema Local Government Area on the same January 19.

    The Rivers PDP, through its Spokesman, Pastor Jerry Needam, accused the main opposition All Progressives Congress (APC) of resorting to violence.

    The Rivers police spokesman claimed that the pro-Amaechi group (SRM) did not apply for police protection, while Wike’s GDI leaders applied for police protection and was granted, stating that the shooting at Bori was being investigated.

    Aguma and Atsuwete, however, described Muhammad (PPRO) as a liar, insisting that the SRM notified the police of the Bori rally and applied for police protection, since obtaining police permit is illegal, as confirmed by a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Femi Falana.

    The SRM rally was fixed for 2 pm on January 19, with the canopies, chairs, tables and podium arranged and the chief of staff was in Bori on January 18, to ensure hitch-free arrangement, but upturned by the militants, who turned the venue into a theatre of war.

    The Channels Television was billed to transmit the rally live, but its Mercedes Benz Outside Broadcasting (OB) van (Lagos FST 928 BX) and a Toyota Hiace bus, with registration number: Lagos: AGL 250 AP, were vandalised, while the organisation also lost an expensive camera, with the crew members, who were setting the OB van, losing valuable items and cash to the attackers.

    Some of the vandalised and shot vehicles are: Toyota Fortuner, with registration number: Rivers KRK 396 BX and two Toyota Landcruiser V8, with registration numbers: Rivers ES 353 PHC and Lagos AAA 448 AA.

    Other shot and vandalised vehicles are Lexus LX 570, with registration number: Rivers KNM 815 AA, Brilliance salon car, with Abuja ABC 830 AL as registration number, Toyota Tundra: Abuja ABJ 587 AE and Chevrolet Avalanche: Lagos EH 193 LSR.

    Besides the divisional police headquarters, Bori has police area command, while there is MOPOL 56 at nearby Saakpenwa-Ogoni, but all the security personnel looked the other way, while the attackers, who were sponsored by desperate politicians, were having a field day.

    After the masked militants had visited thrice with guns and machetes, the All Saints’ Anglican Church, venue of the January 19 rally of SRM and left, policemen later barricaded the main Hospital Road that leads to Kono Waterside and sealed off the expansive premises.

    Amaechi said: “When they say President Obasanjo (Olusegun) is lying about snipers and one thousand names, they say Nigerian Police have no rubber bullets. From where did the rubber bullets come? Is it one of the snipers that shot at Magnus (Abe)? Could it be that they were aiming it at me? For the first time, I will want to expose myself. I will be there (Bori’s rally). I will be there on Saturday (January 25), let them come and shoot.

    “There is serious danger for democracy. What you are seeing here (in Rivers State) is close to what Abacha was doing. This is an Abacha’s government. Tell me the difference. Lives were being lost, people were being shot. Journalists were being arrested. This is worse, because even governors were not arrested under Abacha, but as a governor, hmmnn!

    “Officers of the Rivers State Police Command met at the Police Officers’ Mess and Mbu declared war against the Rivers State Government and Rivers people. That he is determined to ensure that they are not protected and he warned them (policemen) in advance not to come to protect anybody at the rally.

    “The implication of that is that he (Mbu) knew there was going to be an attack and he must have been part of the process of the attack. If not, when the people started shooting, what did the police do.”

    The NGF chairman also stated that the rampaging militants would have killed the journalists, who covered the rally, but managed to escape from the gunshots at Bori.

    Amaechi said: “Is President (Jonathan) saying he has lost control of Mbu? He cannot remove Mbu. He cannot tell Mbu what to do or is it that Mr. President had directed Mbu to kill me and kill others?”

    True to his earlier promise, Amaechi attended the rescheduled rally of the SRM in Bori-Ogoni on January 25, and as usual, did not spare the Federal Government, President Jonathan and Mbu.

    The Rivers governor stated that the militants his administration chased away with the military were now back in the state, fuelled by the Rivers police commissioner and his “cohorts” in Abuja.

    Amaechi spoke amid tight security provided by the police, at the same venue (the playground of the All Saints’ Anglican Church, Bori) where the hired militants were a week earlier shooting sporadically, with the rescheduled rally well-attended and the inauguration of the Khana LGA chapter with 19 wards, of the SRM, performed by Aguma.

    The NGF chairman, who attended the SRM rally for the first time, was accompanied by the representative of the Andoni-Opobo/Nkoro constituency of Rivers state in the House of Representatives, Dakuku Peterside.

    Shops, business outfits and corporate organisations in Bori were shut on January 25 by apprehensive persons, who envisaged a repeat of the violence of January 19. It was gathered that some militants still shot sporadically in Bori in the early hours of January 25, but were repelled by the police.

    The Rivers chapter of the PDP, through Pastor Jerry Needam, the Special Adviser, Media to the state Chairman, Chief Felix Obuah, however, urged Amaechi to do the right things at all times and save himself of avoidable embarrassment.

    Mbu had earlier insisted that he remained a professional police officer, not taking sides and not a politician. In spite of the calls for Mbu’s redeployment for acting like a politician, by the NGF chairman and separate resolutions last year by the Senate and the House of Representatives, the Inspector-General of Police, Mohammed Abubakar, said the Rivers police commissioner had been told to be a professional police officer.

    Abubakar is now under intense pressure to redeploy Mbu, especially with the call on President Jonathan by the members of the National Assembly to remove him (IGP), who has (Abubakar) been summoned by the senators to come and explain his roles in the Rivers crisis.

    Amaechi said in Bori on January 25: “I always tell my Priest that the Bible is a very versatile book. There is nothing you are looking for in the Bible that you will not see. Bible enjoins all of us to be peaceful. The same Bible says the kingdom of God suffereth violence and the violent taketh it by force.

    “I do not want to come back to Ogoni to hear that you were shattered. I do not want you to take the law into your own hands, but I want you to make sure that nobody shoots at you. They (gun-wielding militants) are all human beings. They are not ghosts. They are neither angels nor devil. They are human beings like you. If a man slaps you and gets away with it, tomorrow, he will come back.

    “I will allow members of the SRM to continue with their rallies. Anything that requires the law, they must comply with the law. I do not have to be part of the rallies. The only reason why I came to today’s (January 25) rally is because I need to prove to you, not to Nigerians, that you should not run away from violence.

    “You do not go to war carrying white handkerchiefs. If a man is carrying AK-47, you will carry machine gun. Then, he will say let us talk peace. As much as possible, I will not support violence, but I do not want you dead. Stay alive, because if you die, nobody will vote for us. I wish you God’s blessings and I will assure you, I will stand by you.”

    The NGF chairman also berated the Rivers Commissioner of Police, Mbu Joseph Mbu, an indigene of Cross River State, who has put in 30 years into the police service, for taking sides and not acting like a professional police officer, but a politician.

    Amaechi said: “PDP claims to be the biggest party in Nigeria. APC is the fastest growing party in Nigeria. Then, there was no ACN, no CPC, only PDP in Rivers State. Now, they have seen another party, why are they afraid? Why are they fighting? Why are they shooting? Why are they using policemen? They should allow voting to take place.

    “Let me start by apologising to you, on behalf of Mbu and those who came here (Bori) to shoot guns last Sunday (January 19). From here, I will go to the hospital to see one of the persons they shot. Mbu said nobody was shot. I am going there to see the person myself.

    “As the Governor of Rivers state, I am governor for every Local Government Area. Nobody can stop me from coming to Khana Local Government. Not even those children that issued press statement, threatening and they said they would shoot me and I said ‘let me come and be shot’.

    “This (January 25) morning, many persons called me and said ‘do not go (to Bori)’ and I told them to give me reasons why I should not go. I should send over 3,000 persons to Bori, for them to be shot and I will not be there to be shot. Will that be fair? If they are going to shoot you, they should shoot me first.

    “I want to thank the IGP. I had to call him and I told IGP that I would be going to Khana LG and I thank him for sending security. I reassure him that Rivers people are peace loving.

    “Mbu said he did very well in Oyo State. I have spoken with the Governor of Oyo State (Abiola Ajimobi) and he said Mbu did not do well. Whatever he was doing there was a smaller scale. Why he is doing a larger scale here is because there are very important people in Abuja that are fuelling him. He is making me say it in public. Mbu cannot say he has done well. He has done nothing.”

    The Rivers governor also berated an ex-militant General, Solomon Ndigbara, aka Osama Bin Laden, an Ogoni, whom he said was behind the shootings of January 19 in Bori.

  • Governors fault Presidency over NEC cancellation

    Governors fault Presidency over NEC cancellation

    The Chairman of the Nigeria Governors Forum (NGF), Rotimi Amaechi , on Thursday faulted the Presidency’s frequent cancellation of the National Economic Council (NEC) meeting without valid reasons.

    That was part of the resolutions of the meeting which started on Wednesday and ended in the early hours of Thursday at the Rivers State Governor’s Lodge in Abuja.

    The governors said that cancellation of such meetings, which would allow issues of urgent and utmost national importance to be discussed, is embarrassing to state governors.

    As the NEC meeting was earlier scheduled to hold on Thursday, the governors moved to Abuja to plot strategies and their positions to be presented to NEC only to be informed that the meeting has been postponed.

    They also pointed out that they were not able to contribute their input to the 2014 budget before the National Assembly due to the frequent cancellation of the meeting.

    Reading the communiqué, Amaechi said: “It has become embarrassing that governors are invited to Abuja for NEC meetings only to be told of their cancellation after their arrival without any tangible reason, yet there are issues of urgent and utmost national importance that ought to have been addressed at such meetings.

    “Consequently, we have a 2014 national budget without input from the states resulting in a lack of sense of ownership of the budget process.”

    The forum also reiterated its stance on the allegedly missing $48.9 billion from the account of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) even as the governor of the Central Bank of NIgeria (CBN), Sanusi Lamido Sanusi who initially raised the allegation has since recanted.

    “In furtherance of the issues raised above, the forum reiterates that the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation and the Ministry of Finance should brief the governors formally on the non-remittance of $49.8bn into the Federation Account.”

    “In the absence of NEC meetings, the platform for resolving these issues becomes non-existent,” he added.

     

  • The Amaechi, Wike tango

    The Amaechi, Wike tango

    The Supervising Minister of Education, Nyesom Wike, and Rivers State Governor Rotimi Amaechi are unlikely to settle their quarrel any time soon.

    As it has been for the past few months, the duo have engaged in exchange of words for the better part of this week.

    Wike believes the governor is nurturing a vice-presidential ambition. Amaechi, who is also the Chairman of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF), however, stated that he had not told anybody that he wanted to be vice-president, declaring that Wike and his cohorts were groping in the dark.

    The Rivers Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Chief Felix Obuah, also alleged that Amaechi, gave N500 million to a nearby state to mobilise people to the Port Harcourt International Airport, Omagwa to receive the visiting leaders of the All Progressives Congress (APC).

    The NGF chairman, in his response to the allegation, stressed that with the cashless policy of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), giving N500 million cash to mobilise people was not possible in Nigeria, describing Obuah as a blatant liar.

    Wike and Obuah spoke at the thanksgiving and inauguration of the Eleme Local Government chapter of the Grassroots Development Initiative (GDI) at the Alesa Unity Stadium, Eleme, the headquarters of Eleme LGA of Rivers state. The minister of state for education is the grand patron of the GDI.

    A former Head of State, Gen. Mohammadu Buhari (rtd.); the party’s National Leader, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu; and the interim National Chairman of the opposition party, Chief Bisi Akande, among other leaders of the party, came to Port Harcourt on Tuesday to woo Amaechi to join the APC.

    Wike said: “Some people will tell you that they are not interested in being the vice-president. Meanwhile, underground they are scheming. The meeting they held this morning, they said if they mobilised very well, APC people who are coming to Rivers state will know that the governor is on the ground. You and I know that, that is not mobilisation.

    “What you must know, before now, your governor had told you lies that nothing would make him to leave PDP, but the same governor told his people to go to the airport and receive the APC leaders, like Tinubu, Buhari and co. Does that not show people who are inconsistent? Does that not show that you do not have a governor who is consistent?

    “If you like, go and mobilise people from Edo State, Imo State or any part of this country, Rivers State, we have taken a decision, that they will stand by their brother, son-in-law and the man from the Southsouth to be the President of this country, come 2015.

    “They are giving money to all the local government areas (23) to mobilise one thousand people each. We know that they cannot even get 200 people from each local government. What they are doing is to go to Imo State to mobilise people.

    “They deceived you that they would not leave PDP, now they are leaving PDP. All we want them to do is to officially announce that they have left PDP and we will do our thanksgiving. We stand by President Goodluck Jonathan. Nothing will make us to leave Jonathan. On Jonathan we stand.”

    The supervising minister of education also lauded the GDI members in Eleme for the wonderful mobilisation, saying nobody gave them money, but they came en masse to show solidarity, especially for Dr. Jonathan to be re-elected as the President in 2015.

    The Rivers governor, who spoke through the Chief of Staff, Government House, Port Harcourt, Chief Tony Okocha, declared that Wike, Obuah and their supporters were confused and needed help.

    Okocha said: “Wike boasted on October 27 at the GDI’s rally in Port Harcourt that six commissioners in Governor Amaechi’s cabinet would resign and address the next rally of the GDI. At the Eleme rally that followed, no Rivers commissioner addressed the GDI’s rally. Nigerians will now know that Obuah is a blatant liar.

    “How will a governor or anybody give N500 million to mobilise people, with CBN’s cashless policy? That the APC’s leaders are coming to Port Harcourt to woo Governor Amaechi and his supporters is no longer a secret and not in dispute.

    “Wike, Obuah and their few loyalists are afraid of the crowd of authentic Rivers people that will welcome the APC’s leaders at the Port Harcourt International Airport.

    “They are just groping in the dark. They have nothing else to say. Lie has an expiry date.

    “There is nothing wrong in having ambition. It becomes dangerous when the ambition is inordinate like that of Wike, who wants to be Rivers governor in 2015 at all costs. Governor Amaechi has not told anybody he wants to be vice-president.

    “Wike, Obuah and their followers have tried everything they can do to discredit Governor Amaechi, his government and his supporters, but not working. Stupidity of most PDP leaders and impunity displayed are making leaders of other political parties to be making efforts to poach.”

    The NGF chairman also stated that he had been showing respect to elders and would continue to do so, which he said made him to decide to receive Buhari, Tinubu, Akande and other chieftains of the APC.

    The Rivers governor reiterated that since the APC leaders had earlier met with some of the G-7 governors, it would not be ideal to prevent them from meeting with him.

    The Rivers PDP chairman said: “Any breakdown of law and order in the state, Governor Rotimi Amaechi should be held responsible. Only on Saturday, he gave out N500 million of our state’s money to a nearby state to mobilise people to the airport to receive leaders of APC. Is that what our money is meant for?

    “During the burial of our mother (the late Madam Charity Fyneface Oba, aka Mama Sisi), there was no record of any incident in Rivers state. Amaechi is going about campaigning and giving our money to people from Edo State and nearby states, to come and support him here. We say no. Rivers state money for Rivers state people.”

    Obuah also lauded the GDI members for the “wonderful” mobilisation and support they gave to President Jonathan and his wife, Dame Patience during the funeral, especially at the airport, Okrika and the Polo Club, Port Harcourt, which he described as unprecedented.

    The Deputy National Chairman of the PDP, Uche Secondus, in his speech at the GDI’s rally, stated that Buhari, Tinubu, Akande and other leaders of the APC should not come and tell Rivers people what to do, declaring that nobody would take them to slavery or exploit them again.

    Secondus, a former National Organising Secretary of the PDP and an ex-Rivers Chairman of the PDP, noted that the GDI was for liberation of Rivers people, stating that very soon, Amaechi would declare for the APC, with the members of the GDI and PDP to do thanksgiving, while waiting for the governor at the polls.

    The representative of the Rivers East Senatorial District, Senator George Sekibo, stated that Rivers people were supporting a right cause, in order to ensure good governance, wondering why Amaechi would be fighting President Jonathan, who is from the Southsouth.

    The President-General of the GDI, Bright Amaewhule, insisted that there was no other PDP, while calling on members of the socio-political organisation to support the re-election of President Jonathan in 2015.

    The Coordinator of the GDI in Eleme, Philip Okparaji, saluted Wike’s courage and his highly-principled position to the struggle for the emancipation of Rivers people, as well as his determination to free the people from bondage.

     

     

  • Ataba youths send SoS to Amaechi

    Youths from Ataba Community in Andoni Local Government Area of Rivers State have urged Governor Chibuike Amaechi and the Commissioner of Police (CP) Mbu Joseph Mbu to help solve a crisis in their land.

    They said if the governor and the CP do not intervene, the crisis would be more disastrous than that of August 2004 in which about 30 people died and property worth millions of naira were destroyed.

    In a letter to Amaechi and Mbu, the youths under the aegis of Ataba Youth Organisation (AYO) said the impending attack is going to erupt from attempts by some people in the community to cause division in the youth body.

    In the letter by Ntegun Lazarus Walter and Sokuru Georgewill Adolphus, President and Secretary General respectively, the youths explained that having observed that “all conflicts that ensued in Ataba in recent times resulted from opposition of factional youth bodies in the community” they decided to come together under one umbrella.

    “It is in line with this that the youths of Ataba resolved to register a youth organisation called Ataba Youth Organisation in March 2010” and followed it up by making a constitution to guide their activities and conduct.

    Walter and Adolphus said the youths conducted “a historic, peaceful and successful election, which was supervised by the Andoni Local Government Council officials.”

    They accused a police officer from their area and many others for allegedly being the masterminds of the crisis rocking the youth body.

    “People should tell them not to bring out this confusion because Rivers and Bayelsa states are brothers. They were one before Bayelsa was created out of Rivers in 1996.”

    Apostle Ogu, who is the President of Arm of Hope World Outreach, expressed concerns that while politics and perceived ambitions are

    allowed to take the centre stage in the controversy, common people of the state are bearing the brunt and suffering unnecessarily.

    He also flayed the role of the Rivers State Police Command in the crisis.

    He said the controversy is more than the alleged vice president ambition of the Rivers State governor, adding that “allowing the situation to degenerate to the level where the police becomes irresponsible is ‘unacceptable’.

    “Wherever the problem is, it is politics and intrigues.

    The players played it to get to where they are; it should be allowed. What cannot be allowed is a situation it degenerates to the police holding a state to ransom, where the courts are undermined, where lives and properties are under threat, where people, who could until now not open their mouth to speak because of criminal records, now come to the television parade themselves as whatever and people cannot speak! We now become cowards,” he lamented.

     

  • Girl, 18, in critical condition after gunmen’s rampage in Amaechi’s town

    The carnage unleashed on Ubima Community on that fateful May day claimed the lives of two persons – Temple Amadi and Michael Udoh. Although he was lucky to survive the shooting, Iheanyi Ohahuru is in critical condition and has father has cried out for financial assistance to enable him get the much needed treatment and medication.

    Narrating his ordeal, his father, Mr. Yakubu Ohahuru said the gunmen stormed the community at about 8:30pm on May 4th and unleashed mayhem on his son and other victims. The ‘sin’ of the young man was that he was sitting in front of his father’s house in Ubima, which is fast becoming a hotbed of crimes in the state.

    At the time of this report on Monday, Iheanyi was at the University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital (UPTH) where doctors are battling to save his life. But his father said he doesn’t know for how long he would continue to get medical attention as the family had run out of money to buy drugs.

    His medical records indicated that Iheanyi’s bladder was badly damaged by bullet. He is now forced to urinate through supportive pipe. His legs were also shattered by bullets and there are concerns that he may never walk again unless help comes his way really fast.

    When Niger Delta Report visited him at the UPTH he had emaciated and his father said the family had spent all the money they saved – over N500,000 to take care of his medical bills. Yakubu said he could no longer afford to pay the bill.

    He said, “My son was sitting in the front of my house when the gunmen entered the community around 8pm and shot two persons to death with many others wounded. I was surprised when I saw my son seriously bleeding on the floor that was after we heard gunshot. The condition we met him that day before we rushed him to the hospital was critical. We didn’t think he would survive it considering the quantity of blood that went out of him.”

    The other victims of the sporadic shooting, identified as Temple Amadi and Michael Udoh, have since been buried.

    But for the Ohahurus, the joy of their child’s survival is gradually turning into a nightmare.

    His father, in a hearty appeal, said, “I need help; I want well meaning Nigerian to assist my son so that the doctors can continue to give him treatment. We have spent more than half a million. The native bone doctor who was suppose to be massaging his bone left because the money we agreed with him was not favourable to him. His (native doctor’s) work is important now because the bullet also hit him on his two legs.”

    Ohahuru’s kinsman, who is also a human rights lawyer, Mr. Chigozi Ikpe-Orlu Orlu, slammed the state government for neglecting the lucky man and his son. He blamed the family’s predicament on porous security in the community and other parts of the state.

    He said: “The security of life and property is in the hand of government; the innocent boy was not fighting anybody or stealing when he was shot. But he is in the condition he is today because the government has failed to live up to its responsibility. You can imagine how gunmen will enter a community and start shooting everybody. That means the security officers posted to that area failed to do their job. I am calling on government of Rivers State to show a great concern by coming to his aid. He is entitled to be protected as a citizen of this country.”

     

  • PDP justifies blockade of Rivers Govt House road

    PDP justifies blockade of Rivers Govt House road

     

    The leadership of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has justified police blockade of the road leading to Governor Rotimi Amaechi’s residence at the Rivers State Government house in Port Harcourt.

    In a statement signed by the party’s National Publicity Secretary, Chief Olisa Metuh, on Friday, the PDP, instead, accused the governor of inciting the public against the Federal Government and the Rivers State police commissioner, Mbu Joseph Mbu.

    “Of particular concern is the manipulation of the media by the Governor of Rivers State, His Excellency, Governor Chibuike Amaechi to mislead Nigerians and create an impression that he was barred by the police and the Federal Government from entering the Rivers State Government House, Port Harcourt.

    “This distortion of facts is totally unacceptable and unbefitting of a state governor. It is indeed condemnable that Governor Amaechi has continued to distort facts and interfere in the lawful activities of the police and security operatives ensuring law and order in Rivers State only to manipulate the media and portray himself as the victim,” the statement said.

    Metuh added that Amaechi was fully aware that based on the ruling of the courts, the police had sealed off a secretariat illegally opened by some individuals under the name, flag and colour of the PDP, consequent upon which the route leading to the structure and the Government house was also closed.

    He accused the governor of defying the closure order by choosing to access the Government House through the same route in company with “unauthorised persons” who sought to beat security to access the sealed secretariat.

    “Governor Amaechi cannot feign ignorance of the fact that the route was closed as he must have been fully informed by his security details, otherwise he is running an incompetent government that cannot guarantee the safety and welfare of his state.

    “Governor Amaechi must understand that the Nigeria police is a sacred institution which should not in anyway be dragged into politics. In the same vein, he must understand that facts are sacred and should not be distorted under any guise,” Metuh added.