Amaechi didn't impose 9-month curfew on Okirika — Rivers govt

BY JIMITOTA ONOYUME

PORT HARCOURT— Rivers State government has dismissed as untrue, allegations by wife of President Goodluck Jonathan that Governor Chibuike Amaechi imposed a nine months curfew on Okrika area of the state.

Commissioner for Information and Communications, Mrs Ibim Semenitari who spoke in Port Harcourt, also said the state government did not carry out the demolition it had planned around a school in Okrika to create a play ground for children at the model school being built in the area.

[caption id="attachment_402195" align="alignnone" width="412"] Chibuike Amaechi[/caption]

According to her: “For us in Rivers State, the wife of the President is a Rivers woman. It’s a thing of pride that a Rivers woman is the wife of the President. I have read the statement credited to her. It is important to know she is calling for peace. This shows clearly that some persons were acting without her consent. That is what her statement connotes.

"On the allegation that the governor imposed a nine month curfew on Okrika, Semenitari said “there might be quite some error on that. She did say that she was pleased with the governor for restoring peace in Okrika. There had never been any time this government imposed a nine months curfew on Okrika. It may have occurred before governor Amaechi came in."

The Chaos In Rivers State Must Stop

The nation and the world at large got a shocker on Tuesday, 9th July 2013 when the simmering crisis in the state’s chapter of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and the Rivers State House of Assembly resulted in a free-for-all in the House chamber.

Members of the Assembly were seen attacking one another with dangerous objects which left some of them seriously injured and hospitalised.

The faction of five members of the House opposed to Governor Chibuike Amaechi, threw caution to the winds and assembled early that day and announced they had impeached the Speaker, Hon Otelemabala Amachree. In his place, Hon Evans Bipi presented himself as the new Speaker.

The Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 stipulates that for the impeachment of any elected official to be valid, not less than two-thirds of the members of the House must vote in its favour. This clearly did not happen.

The most regrettable part of it was that the Police, having been intimated of the possibility of trouble, drafted scores of their men to the Assembly.

And yet, it did not stop the grievous assault on members from taking place. The Police simply watched while the law was being broken with impunity. In fact, some uniformed officers were seen helping to perpetrate evil as reminiscent of the horrific scenes seen on NTA in 2003 following the Governor Chris Ngige kidnap saga in Anambra State.

We are at a loss how people described in many media reports as “thugs” were able to find their ways into the Assembly grounds and even the public gallery when security men reportedly screened people getting into the arena.

One would have thought that with crisis forewarned, strict steps would be taken by the law enforcement agencies to keep out non-members and to arrest anyone who abandoned their legitimate duties as legislators and opted to foment trouble.

We condemn what happened in Rivers State last Tuesday in the strongest terms. This was a day that decorum was thrown to the winds, while the monster of lawlessness reigned supreme. It smacks of political madness for a handful of five legislators to purport to impeach a Speaker in total contravention of the constitution.

We must find a way to severely sanction politicians and public office holders who perpetrate such constitutional iniquities. Otherwise, our democracy will continue to be mired in political backwardness. Perhaps, it is time for us to consider the long suggested establishment of constitution courts to deal with matters such as these.

We commend the House of Representatives for quickly intervening and taking over the legislative functions of the House until tempers cool and members come back to their senses.

The House and the Senate should conduct a joint inquiry into the roles played by the law enforcement agents, particularly the Police, on that day. Those who failed in their assigned duties to enforce the law must be made to face the music.

The crisis in Rivers State is beginning to acquire a more dangerous turn, with the supporters of both sides now confronting each other in the streets.

We are living witnesses to the horrors the nation went through as a result of the activities of political thugs and cult groups who later became militants and went into the creeks to disrupt the peace and economic wellbeing of the country.

The nation has paid dearly to pacify and stabilise the Niger Delta. We must not allow ugly recent history to repeat itself. The political combatants must sheathe their swords and allow the people of the state to live peacefully with one another.

There is no substitute to politics without bitterness.

“Game on” in Rivers

By Ochereome Nnanna
IT was horrible in the corridors of power in Port Harcourt on Tuesday last week. If it were a scripted Nollywood home video, it would have been either age-barred or altogether banned by the Nigerian Video Censors Board.

An “honourable” member had a heavy, blunt object in his two hands. He swung it over his head and delivered a hit on the forehead of another “honourable” member.

Rather than the victim turning tail and running for dear life as fast as his feet could take him, he was spinning around like a headless chicken. Perhaps, he was too dazed to run.

He was repeatedly attacked until he found himself near an exit door. Just before he plunged into it, his assailant released a final hit across back in the waist region. We later heard the blunt object was a camera tripod – a steel object!

Someone described that cold-blooded assault as an “attempted murder”. That assailant, whoever he is, must be prosecuted accordingly. The victim could easily have fallen down and lost his life. After all, the late Hon. Aminu Safana, a legislator from Katsina, simply slumped during a heated argument in the chamber of the House of Reps during the Patricia Etteh scandal in 2007 even though he was not even assaulted.

Another sickening part of it all was that a policeman decked in his newly-acquired fatigue uniform was seen stripping the victim of his black jacket and in the process rendering him more vulnerable before his attacker.

Earlier on, five members of the Rivers State House of Assembly opposed to Governor Chibuike Amaechi had conducted a comical charade in which they said they had impeached the Speaker of the House, Otelemabala Amachree, replacing him with Evans Bipi. What else would you call a situation where five out of 32 members of a legislature would purport to carry out an impeachment when the constitution clearly says they needed two-thirds majority or roughly 20 members. The impeachment’s nullity was proved when 26 members later assembled and attended to a supplementary budget brought to the house by the Deputy Governor, Tele Ikuru.

What happened that Tuesday was a move to push Governor Amaechi further to the outer fringes of power, perhaps before the final nudge. The opposition rehearsed its roles very carefully. You must have seen how the grounds of the Assembly were flooded with people described as “thugs” in some media quarters. Since there was a screening of both members and visitors to the Assembly, with scores of policemen in evidence, how was it possible for “thugs” to make it into the “hallowed chamber” of the House if superior powers were not in the picture and on the side of the opposition?

And how come that the policemen sat on their palms and watched the live movie, rather than do their job as law enforcement agents? Those (like Dr. Doyin Okupe, the Special Assistant to the President on Public Affairs) who said the Presidency had nothing to do with events of that day were merely playing to the gallery. This was simply the latest episode of the President Goodluck Jonathan versus Governor Chibuike Amaechi political muscle-flexing. It was the newest phase of the political game meant to push matters rapidly towards the endgame.

After the Nigerian Governors’ Forum (NGF) election, which Amaechi doggedly contested against the directives of his party, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and won, thus making President Jonathan lose face; he had drawn a bold battle line. He not only gave the president’s political enemies in the north the opportunity to betray the Party and the President; he was also the rallying point for the rebellion.

Thereafter, the two sides (President and Governor) made that routine protocol encounter at the Port Harcourt International Airport when Jonathan visited his home state. It was splashed all over the front pages of the dailies, and speculated as a move towards reconciliation. The following day, the major stakeholders opposed to Amaechi in the Rivers State PDP led by Hon. Felix Obuah, visited the President in Aso Villa. They included Amaechi’s former principal, ex-Governor Peter Odili. That visit was meant to keep the President focused on his warpath with the Governor.

The anti-Amaechi group would obviously want him out of the picture as soon as possible because he could remain an irritant on President Jonathan’s path to re-election in his home base. The PDP and the Presidency are set for a general re-jig of structures in readiness for the oncoming political high season and undesirable elements will be dropped from the wagon as soon as possible.

Amaechi started this crisis by striking the posture of an opposition element; a strange bedfellow, within the ruling party. He chose to fight the party and the Presidency from within, rather than honourably resign and join his allies in the All Progressives Congress (APC) parties, to which he is now the rallying point. People say he has the constitutional right to do what he is doing, but the party also has the right to protect itself from a member who now acts in the interest of the opposition. This is power play, and it is game on.

Amaechi says he is under siege. What did he expect? He would do the same to anyone who undermines him. The hand that disturbs the bee’s nest will be stung.

Boko Haram convictions

TUESDAY, July 9th 2013 became an important day in our history of war on terrorism. It was on this day that Hon. Justice Bilikisu Aliyu of an Abuja Federal High Court sentenced Shuaibu Abubakar, Salisu Ahmed, Umar Babagana, and Mohammed Ali, all members of the terror group, Boko Haram, to life in jail for their parts in the bombing of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) office in Suleija.

Many were elated that, at least and at last, some terrorists have been brought to book, even if they got less than they deserved: death, which they meted out to their victims.

Concerns remain, though. What about their sponsors; the big men who assembled and financed the ugly venture? You don’t kill a snake by cutting the tail leaving the head.

Secondly, sending them to jail for life means we have to be vigilant forever for fear of their affiliates setting them free through jailbreaks, the sort we witnessed in Ondo and Bama prisons recently.