…Describes Wike’s ‘false alarm’ on planned state-of-emergency in Rivers as a case of self-soul-haunt
… charges both the Elders, Stakeholders and International Community to come to the aid of the Rivers people as the state is sliding into ‘modern day dictatorship’, full-blown pariah status.
Erstwhile National Publicity Secretary of the defunct New Peoples Democratic Party (nPDP) and chieftain of the All Progressives Congress, Chief Eze Chukwuemeka Eze, has reacted to the alarm raised by the Rivers State Government claiming that it uncovered a plot to stage a State of Emergency in Rivers State. The alarm was raised in a statement issued by the Rivers State Commissioner for Information and Gov. Wike’s puppet, Mr. Paulinus Nsirim, where the ever-blandly fighting governor claimed to have uncovered yet another plot by those he called some Rivers people in Abuja to prevail on the Federal Government to stage an emergency rule in the state.
The state Commissioner for Information had on Tuesday May 19, 2020, informed Rivers people that some persons resident in Abuja were planning to cause crisis in the state to warrant the declaration of a state of emergency.
Pastor Msirim claimed thus: “These persons have been making attempts to achieve this goal since 2015, but that 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 State, instead of supporting our efforts, these Abuja politicians are busy looking for a State of Emergency because they want to acquire power.”
Pastor Msirim further claimed one of the respected chieftains of the All Progressives Congress (APC) had to expose their plan to use COVID-19 to launch into the politics of the State. “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.”
In a statement circulated to media houses, the party chieftain berated the governor and his agents for always calling out the good people of the state to inciting machinations and idle alarms. The chieftain however sympathized with the governor and his image makers for portraying themselves as people who have lost every sense of sanity with claims that are usually grossly unsubstantiated, unfathomable and cannot be taken seriously.
Chief Eze pointed out that 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 State 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.
The party chieftain challenged the state government to reveal the identity of those responsible for the 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.
Chief Eze observed that the Wike administration has simply turned the good Rivers people into weekly spectators of idle orchestra who are called out every often to wolf-crying shenanigans. He said the governor uses every single incident to pick a fight and use the people as pawns on his idle political chess game and as shields in his endless journey in search of his ubiquitous Trojan horse.
Saying now, it is about COVID-19, Chief Eze called the attention of the Federal Government to the deliberate suffering meted on Rivers people by the Wike-led government in the name of fighting Covid-19, stressing that the state is currently sliding into a pariah state.
He said aside losing sources of livelihood, Rivers people are dying daily and silently too from hunger and starvation and predictable massive civil disobedience. “It seems it is Gov Wike and his administration that are creating instability thereby pushing for state of emergency. He rules without law, he is the law. What can be state of emergency than a rule without law?, he queried.
Saying although the claim by the state government is merely fallacious, Eze accuses Governor Wike and his agents of trying to enforce state of emergency on Rivers State by using executive orders 1 and 6, 2020 as instruments 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, including under the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights and 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 state, including by carrying out mass arbitrary detention, mistreatment, forced evictions, and imposing pervasive controls on daily life, high-handedness and crude method adopted by government in the administration of the state and her people 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.
He said the government is and has remained confused as to 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.
The party chief stressed that no serious government will abandon the serious responsibility of piloting the ship of state at a time as critical as now, just to embark on a wild goose chase.
