Rivers Elder Statesman Chief Amabipi Martins has taken a swipe on the recent resolutions of President Tinibu’s intervention in the ensuing political crisis in Rivers State, describing it as plot by the presidency to pacify the former governor of Rivers State and FCT Minister, Nyesom Ezenwo Wike by handing over the political leadership of the state to him.
Speaking in an interview on Arise Television, Chief Martins, a veteran media practitioner and former General Manager of the Rivers State Newspaper Corporation, publishers of the Tide Group of Newspapers, said the resolution was “unacceptable, vexatious and onesided”.
Declaring the outcome of the meeting as an affront to the sensibilities of Rivers people, the elder statesman said President Tinibu was playing a “good mentor” to Wike to replicate his Lagos based, dominant, self serving style of political control and governance in Rivers State by appropriating political and economic powers of the state to himself.
He decried a situation where the former governor would continue to exert overbearing political influence in the state after his tenure, and urged him to step aside and allow his successor, Governor Siminalayi Fubara to carry out his constitutional duties and mandate as the governor of Rivers State.
Elder Martins who condemned the directives from the meeting for Governor Fubara to re-present the 2024 budget to the House of Assembly, pointed out that it was totally unconstitutional for defecting lawmakers to exercise legislative duties in the state where they have no representation following their decamping from the ruling Peoples Democratic Party, PDP in the state to the All Progressive Congress APC.
The Elder statesman said the resolution was not in the interest of Rivers people and as such not binding on the state, and urged the Rivers State Governor not to be distracted but concentrate on the governance of the state.
