APC Chieftain to Rivers LG Chairmen: ‘Go home; avoid being used to perpetuate crises
From Chris Eze, Port Harcourt
As the tenure of local government chairmen elected in Rivers State three years ago elapsed on Monday, chieftain of the All Progressive Congress, APC, in the state, Chief Eze Chukwuemeka Eze has advised the former chairmen to go home quietly and avoid being used as tools to perpetuate crisis in the state.
Recall that the ex chairmen are relying on the law made by the 27 pro-Wike lawmakers in the State House of Assembly which purportedly extended their tenure for six months as an alibi to remain in office; even when a court order had invalidated the law.
In a statement on Tuesday, Eze, a former National Publicity Secretary of the defunct New PDP, (n-PDP) said “reports from reliable sources have brought to light surreptitious plots from the camp of the FCT Minister, Nyesom Wike, to use the former Council Chairmen to perpetrate an offshoot of the crisis generated from the controversy of the status of the politically stranded 27 former Rivers Lawmakers loyal to him”.
The plot, Eze said was sealed over the weekend in the country home of the FCT Minister in Rumuepirikom, Port Harcourt, where each of the former chairmen was handed a script to play beginning from June 18, a day after the due date for their exit, in a bid to sustain hostilities and reduce the state into a theatre of war and create discomfort for the seamless administration of the state by the Governor, Sir Siminialayi Fubara and his team.
Eze pointed out that in Emohua Local Government Area, the former Council Chairman, Hon. Chidi Lloyd, a Lawyer with a Ph.D in Law who, as expected, should be displaying the highest level of civility in the situation, issued a press statement inviting people from different wards to gather at the Council Headquarters for what he termed an empowerment programme where he plans to distribute machetes/cutlasses to troublemakers to disturb the peace of the state from the local government.
“In the same manner, former Council Chairman of Ikwerre Local Government Area, Mr. Samuel Nwanosike, a Ph.D Degree holder has turned the council into a playground for hoodlums who have been recruited to keep watch and invade and devour any foreign body alien to their circle in the guise of what they call carnival”.
Eze said in Degema, Asari-Toru, Obio-Akpor, Eleme, Oyigbo and Port Harcourt City local government areas respectively, angry youths have taken over entrances to the council secretariats, sending warnings to the former Chairmen and their band of troublemakers to steer clear and strictly limit themselves to the directives of the Governor in his broadcast regarding the transition of the local government administration in the state.
Gov. Fubara, in a statewide broadcast early Tuesday morning, directed Heads of Local Government Administration to take-up the responsibility of administering the 23 local council areas pending further directive on the matter.
This, Eze said is to avoid any vacuum that would have been created from the exit of the former Council Chairmen and councilors on the expiration of their tenure on Monday June 17.
Prior to this time, the APC Chief said there were widespread reports of looting of Council properties ranging from vehicles to electronics to computers and furniture and fittings by various council chairmen and their appointees who on a second thought decided to racket the various secretariats to make administration difficult for the incoming interim management team who are expected to be announced soonest.
Chief Eze called on the people of Emohua Local Government Area to refuse being enlisted into any criminal cartel by Chidi Lloyd who is hell bent on perpetrating crisis in the local government as part of the execution of the script handed to him by Nyesom Wike.
He urged all out-gone Chairmen to peacefully go back home to their family and understand that power is transient to avoid being used by Wike as “dogs of vandals” to soil their reputations and destroy their legacies in their respective local government areas in the pursuit of his selfish private ends.
