The President, KAGOTE, a pan Ogoni Elites Organisation, Justice Peter Akere, has said the people of Rivers South-east senatorial district will resist attempts to deny them the governorship position of Rivers State in 2015.
Justice Akere, a retired Justice of the High Court, stated this in reaction to statements credited to the Felix Obuah-led Peoples Democratice Party (PDP) and Minister of State for Education, Nyesom Wike, at an event in Ikwerre Local Government Area at the weekend. Both Obuah and Wike had at the sensitisation rally organised by Grassroot Development Initiative (GDI) disclosed that the era of zoning elective offices in the state was over, insisting that anybody from any of the three senatorial districts can contest and if voted in, serve in any capacity he or she is found worthy and capable to occupy.
In what some analysts viewed as a declaration of his ambition to govern the state in 2015, the minister was quoted as saying: “Chibuike Amaechi is from Ikwerre North, while he is from Ikwerre South and constitutionally qualified to contest.”
Justice Akere described the statements as unfortunate, adding that it amounted to greed. He emphasised that Wike was at the vanguard of calls for a Rivers East governor in 2007.
“We are all Rivers people, we have contributed our quotas; Rivers West presented Odili, East gave us Amaechi, the South-east must be allowed to produce the next governor” he maintained.
The former chairman of the old Bori Local Government Area who disclosed that the people of Rivers South-east were not slaves to the other senatorial districts, emphasised that fairness, justice and brotherhood should be allowed to prevail in political calculations.
To preserve and strengthen unity in the state, he added that Rivers South-east senatorial district supported the east in 2007 just as it
encouraged the west in 1999. Insisting that 2015 is the turn of the South-east to occupy the brick house. Justice Akere urged President Goodluck Jonathan to use his good offices to resolve the perceived crisis between him and Governor Amaechi, stressing that if allowed to linger for long, it might manifest in the 2015 general election.
Source: AllAfrica
