The Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) has called on well-meaning Nigerians to call what it described as puppets and puppeteers in the Rivers State crisis to order.
Publicity Secretary of the party, Alhaji Lai Muhammed, who made the call in Lagos said that the expulsion of Rivers State Governor, Mr. Rotimi Amaechi by state chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) at a time that Nigerians were looking for solution to the crisis, shows that the party is bent on overheating the polity.
The Action Congress noted that the sole interest of PDP is power at the expense of the responsibility that goes with it adding that the situation must be checked through all constitutional means before it plunges the country into unmitigated chaos.
The party however acknowledged that whatever transpired within the PDP is not its business but that the concern of the party stem from the dangerous impact that the Rivers crisis can have on the polity, especially its implication for the country’s fledgling democracy.
”Because of the danger their actions pose for our polity, we are concerned that these trouble-makers are hell bent on annihilating Gov. Amaechi. Those who have accused us of crying more than the bereaved do not get it. We are indeed the bereaved once anything happens that can torpedo our democracy and destroy our country. This is why we will also be unrelenting in calling on all Nigerians to call the puppets and puppeteers in Rivers to order”, the party said in a statement.
The party explained that Amaechi has been targeted as result of his strenuous defence of the Nigerian Governors’ Forum (NGF), which he chairs; his battle for his state and its people over their oil well dispute with Bayelsa, which is in furtherance of his efforts to live up to his oath of office and constitutional responsibility, and his audacity in rejecting dictations from an unelected self-important personality on how he should govern his state.
”They also forget that state Governors are elected just like the President, that they are not subordinate to anyone and that nowhere in the constitution is it said that governors must report to the President or agree with everything he proposes
”As for the allegation that the Rivers Governor failed to heed the instructions from high (though unelected) quarters that he must halt the demolition in Okrika, we leave Nigerians to judge whether somebody occupying a post that is unknown to the constitution can override one who is a creation of the constitution….regarding that person’s constitutional mandate. We leave it for Nigerians to determine whether a state Governor, who is the Chief Security Officer of his state, should have no say over the security of the state, just because an overbearing ‘political’ Police Commissioner has assumed extra-powers at the behest of his puppeteers!” ACN said.
