Former Director-General of the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), Dr Dakuku Peterside, has called for peace following the upcoming gubernatorial elections in the State.
He said this while condemning the attack at the Port Harcourt residence of Prince Tonye Princewill, a governorship aspirant on the platform of All Progressives Congress (APC) on Friday.
Peterside said the attack was despicable, adding that the attackers chose Christians’ Good Friday to carry out the attempt on a person’s life and thanked God that neither Princewill nor any member of his household was harmed in the attack.
According to the 2015 governorship candidate of the APC, “Our state has an ugly rating among the comity of people as one which politics is bloody and bestial when that is not who we are. But in the face of our arguments that such violence and attacks do not represent who truly we are, the latest attack on the residence of Prince Tonye Princewill weakens our stance.”
Continuing, he said, “We can’t afford to return to the notorious days of “Bloody Rivers” in our politics, more so with electioneering activities peaking and soon to reach a crescendo. Our politics needs better deals than as was witnessed in Princewill’s home on Easter Friday. And Princewill equally deserves better deals from the state being a citizen.”
He maintained that politicians should imbibe the willingness to submit to fair contests at all times and “not seek political fortunes via violent and extremists options. The use of armed hirelings or barrels of the gun in what should be fair contests should never be part of our democratic practice. They never had been since democracy evolved as part of civilised governance.
“There must be those afraid of fair contests through the ballots. So, for them, violence and other extreme options, alien to democracy and development, must be deployed against other contestants. Their aim is to frighten all others to chicken out so they would ascend the throne of victory on a platter. My one Kobo advice to such persons is to withdraw their aspiration and not plunge Rivers into another bloody season. Our wounds had yet to heal as our loved ones are still mourning their loved ones cut off in similar political circumstances not too long ago.”
Peterside also urged residents and political faithful to fall back on legal ways stipulated by the constitution or seek agencies of the state to settle their differences, as “doing so would make our state peaceful and our lives meaningful for the development we all crave for.”
