A member of the Rivers State Elders’ Forum, Chief Anabs Sara Igbe has described members of the Martin Amaewhule-led members of the Rivers State House of Assembly as squatters.
Reacting to the visit of the Rivers political leaders on Sunday, Sara-Igbe stated that lawmakers have no right to prevent the governor from visiting the assembly quarters.
Speaking with our correspondent on the telephone, the member of the Rivers Elders’ Forum who had taken the Amaewhule faction of the assembly to court to nullify their membership of the house stated that the governor is backed by law to visit and enter anywhere in the state with the permission of anyone.
He declared; “The Governor is the governor of Rivers State. The Governor by law has the power to enter anywhere, both private and public places. He does not need permission to enter anywhere, not to mention a public building he is responsible for the maintenance. So anybody who says he has no right to go there is a fool. The Governor has the right to go and assess, to go and see the place.”
He said he had expected the assembly members to capitalise on the opportunity of the governor’s visit to make peace with him rather than their grandstanding. “I even think that the assembly people would have seized the opportunity of his going there to embrace him and tell him, let us make peace. So if he goes there and they don’t embrace him, it means they have evil intentions. It’s their evil intentions that are chasing them, Fubara is not chasing anybody.
“If Fubara wants to destroy a house, can they stop him? He’s not going there to destroy, maybe God led him to go there so that they can make peace but they refused to make peace because they are impostors. They’re not assembly members, they are squatters there.
“So the noise they are making about Sim going there or Sim not going there is purely irrelevant, it doesn’t make any sense. But Amaewhule can go to the secretariat, he can visit the government house, he can visit anywhere but the Governor has no power to go there. Are they not fools? Who is deceiving who?
“Even if it is demolition, are they not squatters there? They are squatters in that place. Let them wait. In the next 2 months, we will finish with them, whether they will remain there. By the grace of God within 2 or 3 months we will finish with them. By the time the court pronounces that they are no longer members of the assembly, will they still remain there? If they are intelligent, they are supposed to park their things and go because any moment from now, they will be evicted from that place. If they were intelligent, they should know that. Normally, if the court judgment has come will they still remain there?”
Also speaking, Ogbonna Nwuke, former House of Representatives Member for Etche/Omuma Federal Constituency said that there was no evidence anywhere that the governor was planning to demolish the assembly quarters.
He said the claim was the imagination of those who are proposing it.
The former House of Representatives member stated; “I think that given the nature of our laws, people have the right of association and those have visited the assembly quarters under whatever guise have the right to visit. But beyond that, I think we should be careful how we make imputations.
“There’s no evidence anywhere, except in the imagination of those who are proposing it that the state government and state governor have any plans to demolish the assembly quarters.
“Recall that quarter was renovated not long ago. But as the governor had said, he said he had the right to go see the state of the facility and what his administration could do to further improve things there.
“So, to raise these allegations about destroying the legislative quarters to my mind is something that is over-orchestrated. Now we don’t assume that the governor we have is a destructive person. What we know is that he’s a man with a peaceful disposition and so we don’t know where this whole propaganda being fanned by people who see themselves as opponents of the governor are coming from because it doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t add up.”
On non-invitation of the governor to the quarters, Nwuke said; “If you look at the nature of that story that is unfolding, first of all for some people locked the gate and for security people who were supposed to be at the gate vanished when the governor was coming in broad daylight, they were some indications that perhaps those lawmakers knew that the governor was coming. That will explain why there was no security man at the gate and why the gate was chained like that. I don’t think we are playing any Cowboys and Indians here. They know the truth as well. But let’s deal with the issues, will it be proper, and respectful for the governor of a state to visit a facility within the state and be locked out?
“What that means is whether we like it or not those characters have something set up. If the Governor did not enter the facility they have succeeded in embarrassing him if he entered the facility when they had decided to lock him out that’s also another form of embarrassment.
“I’m very sure that it’s a carefully written script and either way, there were supposed to be some capital to it in the media and that’s what they are doing.”
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