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Rivers State Crisis Update: Southsouth elders, stakeholders Ask Amaechi to resign

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Governor Chibuike Amaechi seems to be loosing in the battle  that is currently taking over Rivers State.
Following a meeting on Wednesday, the South-south elders and stakeholders called on the Rivers State Governor, Chibuike Amaechi, to resign as a member of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)
Also, the leader of the South- south elders and stakeholders, Chief Edwin Clark, has described  Amaechi as an agent that was being used by opposition to destabilise the country.
According to the statement read by the deputy chairman of the group, Air Commodore Idongesit Nkanga (rtd), the group said: “No party leader, including those presently manipulating Amaechi can tolerate the high level of insubordination and disrespect he has continually flaunted. We, therefore, advise Amaechi to resign honourably from his party to wage his war of acrimony against the leadership of the party.
“Failing that, we call on the leadership of the PDP to take the stringent measures to expel him to bring sanity to the party and to serve as a deterrent to other renegade members.”
Nkanga said the fate of President Goodluck Jonathan in the 2015 presidential election depends on Nigerians and “not for a group of people to decide no matter their unholy alliance and gang up.”
He said they were concerned that some governors have been vociferous in their agitation for power shift to the North at all cost, stating that these governors have given themselves the task of consulting Nigerians over the crisis in Rivers State.
Nkanga  faulted the consultations by five PDP governors, saying, “that they did not commence their consultations with doyens of democracy like Alhaji Shehu Shagari, but decided to embrace former military dictators,  supplanters of governments and that this made their purpose and intentions suspicious.
“How else would Governor Murtala Nyako of Adamawa State boast that they would bury PDP if not through undemocratic means? We make bold to say that their unholy romance with Amaechi and non-democratic forces over the crisis in Rivers State, which they have continually blown out of proportion is an ominous threat to this democratic dispensation.
“We, therefore, wish to caution that Nigerians, particularly those in authority to guard their utterances and action to avoid over heating the polity.
Also giving insight on the Rivers State crisis, Clark said Amaechi was an agent of those, who wants to destabilise the country due to their selfish interest. According to him, “several attempts have been made by the South-south elders and stakeholders to resolve the differences between President Jonathan and Amaechi, but each time a meeting was scheduled, Amaechi would not show up at the appointed time.”
He said the former governor of Edo State, John Oyegun, Victor Odili, former Supreme Court Justice, Karibe Whyte, Alabo Graham Douglass, were some eminent Nigerians who tried in vain to mediate between President Jonathan and Amaechi.
The latest attempt to resolve the crisis, Clark said, was in the South-south governors’ meeting, which he said, Amaechi deliberately boycotted  but sent his deputy. He explained that for deliberately stalling a resolution of the crisis between him and President Jonathan, “Amaechi is being used. He is an agent of those who want to destabilise the country. He has an agenda with other people”.
But a chieftain of the party, Senator Nimi Barigha-Amange, has blamed the lingering crisis in the state on the failure of the party apparatchik to effectively tackle the issues involved.
He argued that the rumoured ambition of Amaechi should not be the reason for the crisis as he was constitutionally free to contest for any office in the coming elections including even the presidency.
He said: “Nobody can stop” Amaechi as a free citizen of the country who can vote and be voted for, from contesting for any position either under the platform of PDP or another party.”
Barigha-Amange noted that it is only the leadership of the party that can effectively fix the problem of Rivers state and by extension the festering issues in all the PDP controlled states.
He accused the party leadership of docility and lamented that they are not doing enough to engender lasting solution and reconciliation as was the norm in the past when the party faces the crisis of this nature.
“For me as the party man, I am not going to put blame on the party but I think the party can handle the situation. It is the party that can resolve the situation because Rivers is a PDP state and no other party has a strong existence in the state.
You can only see other parties coming to life during elections because the other disgruntled members of PDP will like to contest, so they will likely go those parties to contest and after contesting or winning they will be back to the PDP fold again. It is a PDP state and so if you have crisis like this it is the duty of the party to move in because all the governors are under the party, no governor is bigger than the party”, he said.
“The party should not relax, I am talking about the party nationally. The party should go in and resolve this. I remember in 2002 we were having similar challenges across the country in about 75 per cent of the PDP state. Then we set up Committees that waded into these things, each committee spent about one week on ground, then had meeting with various stakeholders and harmonised, submitted the report and it was very effective. I expect the party should do something”, he urged.
Barigha-Amange continued: “Yes I have made comment on that (Amaechi’s suspension). It was done too hastily…it was not supposed to be. In the event like that the governor is the leader of the party in the state. So if the governor has done something wrong, it’s for you to call him and have effective discussion asking him to defend himself and thereafter, if he is found wanting. You will now go for the punishment in whatever way you may want to put it.
” My own is that the party has not done enough, fortunately and unfortunately, the leadership is not more…I mean its complete as there have been mass resignation. There is only the party Chairman and the caretaker committee in existence, but the Caretaker Committee can do something, the BOT on ground can also do something but it is not out of hand yet”.
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