During a conversation with The Sun, Tony Okocha, a chieftain of the Rivers State All Progressives Congress, asserted that the state governor, Siminialayi Fubara, has given freedom to the Ijaw group to brandish guns.CONTINUE FULL READING>>>>>
He warned that the boys have been let loose and something needs to be done to demobilize them. He further called for the declaration of a state of emergency.
Concerning assertions that a state of emergency will dislocate democratic structures, Okocha replied, “What is democracy that you are talking about?”
“Is it democracy where people are maimed? Is it the time we begin to see deaths on the streets of Port Harcourt and environs? Now the governor has ethnicized the state.”
“I am sure you are already hearing that slogan: “Asawana! Asawana! Asawana!” (Ijaw ethnic war slogan), and he has so given them the liberty to brandish guns.”
“Rivers are brandishing guns more sophisticatedly than the one force people carry. The boys have been let loose; they have been let loose in the slums and in the creeks. It is like when you let the dogs loose. You have to do something to demobilize them now.”Reacting to people’s assertion that his call for a state of emergency amounts to a political coup to just remove the governor, Okocha said that they have seen signs of war as businesses no longer flourish.
He declared that he would not think twice about declaring a state of emergency when all other measures had failed. He said that the governor does not follow court orders, proving that the option to prevent declaring a state of emergency has failed.
“The governor does things the way he wants. The governor is patronizing only three members in the house of effective 30. Three members are the ones with him.”
“One is Speaker, another is Deputy Speaker, the remaining is Majority Leader; where does it happen?””Supreme Court has interpreted that what constitutes a legislature is one third of the total members of the Assembly, not the ones that are sitting.”CONTINUE FULL READING>>>>>
