Why Rivers State Is in Crisis, By First Lady

First Lady, Patience Jonathan

Amidst a rash of reactions over the festering political crisis in Rivers State, the First Lady, Mrs. Patience Jonathan, Wednesday gave an insight into why the state has been on the boil in recent time.
According to her, the crisis in the state, took a turn for the worse following the wresting of the structure of the state chapter of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) from loyalists of the governor, Mr. Chibuike Amaechi, began four years ago.
However, unlike the first lady who attributed the crisis to a clash of interests among the political elite in Rivers State, Nobel laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, in another intervention in the worsening situation in the state, said like most Nigerian conflicts, "inordinate greed for public resources" could not be ruled out as the source of the tension in the state.
As the crisis continues to take a different dimension, the state government yesterday raised the alarm over attempts to compromise the security of Amaechi by the indiscriminate posting of security officials to the state government.
And against the backdrop of the attack by anti-Amaechi protesters in Port Harcourt on Tuesday on four northern governors who came on a solidarity visit to their Rivers State colleague, the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), which decried the incident, warned that it portends danger to democracy in Nigeria.
The first lady, while receiving 16 bishops from the South-south geo-political zone who paid her a visit in Abuja, said the seed of discord in the state was sown in Anyugubiri in Okrika four years ago following moves by the state government to demolish some structures in the town.
According to a report by the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), Mrs. Jonathan reiterated that contrary to the impression created, she had nothing to do with the crisis; rather, she has been working for peace in the state.
She told her guests that she had been praying fervently for God to intervene in the crisis so that peace could return to the state.
She said: "Rivers State issue is one thing I've committed to prayer because I believe there is nothing God cannot do. God restored me and I'll do His work without the fear of man.
"The truth will always remain the truth and what God ordains must come to pass and so Rivers issue is something we've handed over to God."
She said contrary to some reports that she has been fuelling tension in the state, she has always mediated between Amaechi and other parties in the crisis.
"This matter started as far back as four years ago at Anyugubiri in Okrika when I begged him not to demolish a part of Okrika but (that he should) hold dialogue first with the people.
"After that incident, he called the chairman of Okrika (local government) and sacked him for holding a reception in our honour; that boy was the first victim.
"He also put my people under curfew for nine months. I called him and pleaded with him but he refused. Then I began to hear all sorts of propaganda in the media against me; this is not the way.