On the 4th day of May, there was chaos and disorder in Port Harcourt. Youths said to be members of the All Progressives Congress, APC, had vandalized the party’s secretariat along Forces Avenue, forcing the party executives to relocate to a bush bar.
While the siege lasted, police intervened and fired live rounds at the protesting youths, with some reportedly killed at the scene while others fled with different degrees of injuries.
However, that was the signaling of the now ubiquitous finger-pointing, accusations, and counter-accusations which have characterized the whole process, with the faction loyal to the minister of Transportation, Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi, saying that the protesting youths were not party members but thugs hired to cause mayhem.
The faction loyal to the Senator representing Rivers South-East Senatorial District in the National Assembly and a governorship aspirant on the platform of the APC has a different perspective of the event. The faction maintained that the protesting youths were party members who were disenfranchised prior to the Congress. No one knows whose account to believe as the issue has become the subject of a court injunction and order disobeyed.
On the 11th day of May, one week after the vandalization of the APC secretariat, there was an invasion of the Rivers State High Court complex resulting in thugs barring judges and Judiciary workers from their offices and carrying out their officially assigned responsibilities.
This was so because that was the day set for the delivery of judgment in the suit filed by the Magnus Abe’s faction of the All Progressives Congress in their bid to stop the local government ward congresses across the state.
Theportcitynews.com believe that the federal government should set up an inquiry to ascertain what took place at the Secretariat of the All Progressives Congress on the 4th of May and what led to the invasion of the Rivers State High Court on the 11th of May and those involved.
Theportcitynews.com also believe that failure of such might lead to a total breakdown of law and order in the state.
People were reportedly shot at with some dying on the spot. Who shot them? Why were they shot? What has been done about it?
The Federal Government should not wait for things to get out of hand before it acts. The main actors in these dramas should be made to account for the actions of their followers.
Theportcitynews.com believe that the attack and vandalization of the Rivers State High Court complex and barring of judicial officers from carrying out their functions are not in any way isolated from the political crisis that has befallen the state and sets a very dangerous precedence capable of disrupting the peace enjoyed in the state as it journeys to towards another general election.
This is a desperate time in Rivers State and it calls for desperate measures. The people need to be reassured that their safety is guaranteed. They need to be reassured of violence-free general elections in the state. This will be achieved if the current political showdown is nipped in the bud.
The political crises might snowball into a bigger conflagration that might force the federal government to declare a state of emergency in the state.
Having this mind, it is advised that the dramatis personae in this whole issue see the need to submit to a proper, peaceful and democratic process as is obtained in other climes where the will of the people is not thwarted for various personal and political expediencies.
Theportcitynews.com believe that it behooves on the Rivers State Government to seek for a peaceful resolution of the problem irrespective of the difference in political platforms.
Governor Wike, being the chief security officer of the state, should go beyond issuing of state broadcast and galvanize leaders and elders of the state to a roundtable discussion where issues pertaining to this will be resolved.
