By Olawale Lamina
The former National Publicity Secretary of the defunct New People’s Democratic Party ,nPDP, and chieftain of the All Progressives Congress, Chief Eze Chukwuemeka Eze, has advised all former 23 Local Government Council Chairmen in Rivers State whose term of office terminated Monday, June 17, 2024, not to allow themselves to be used as tools for perpetuatng political crisis in the state under whatever guise that could translate into tenure elongation beyond the due date.
In a statement made available to the media, the APC chieftain who decry the current impasse in the state alleged that reports from reliable sources had brought to light surreptitious plots from the camp of the former governor, Nyesom Wike, who wanted to use the just relieved council chairmen to perpetrate crisis generated from the controversy of the status of the politically stranded 27 former Rivers Lawmakers loyal to him.
According to Eze, the alleged plot 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 equally made reference to an assembly purportedly organized to foment trouble in the state alleging that, “For instance, 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.”
Continuing his allegations which he said were part of the reports he was privy to, that APC chieftain 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 Secretariat, 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.”
Recall that 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.
In his reaction to the broadcast address, Eze said the decision by the governor was “to avoid any vacuum that would have been created from the exit of the former Council Chairmen and councilors at the expiration of their tenure on Monday June 17.
Prior to this time, the APC Chief also alleged that, there were widespread reports of looting of Council properties ranging from vehicles to electronics, computers, 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 were expected to be announced, ( already announced and reported by The Pinnacle Times.
But Eze called on the people of Emohua Local Government Area to refuse any attempts to be enlisted into any criminal gang by those he claimed were hell-bent on perpetrating crisis in the local government as part of the execution of the script handed to him by their Principal in Abuja.
He concluded by urging all outgone local government chairmen in the state to “peacefully go back home to their families and understand that power is transient to avoid being used by their Principal “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.”
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