The Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) has asked Nigerians to hold
President Goodluck Jonathan responsible if the country
slides into anarchy as a result of the worsening crisis in Rivers state.
Reacting to the reported attack on the four Governors who visited Gov.
Chibuike Amaechi of Rivers in Port Harcourt on Tuesday,
the party said in a statement issued on Wednesday by its National
Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, in Oro, Kwara State,
that the attack that took place under President Jonathan’s watch is
unprecedented in the country’s history.
”We will not accept the usual sophistry that President Jonathan is
not in any way involved in the Rivers crisis. It is also not an excuse
to argue that the President did not know that the visiting Governors
will be attacked, because as the country’s Chief Security Officer,
he has his ears and eyes all over the country in the persons of
security agents. Therefore, if the argument is that he did not know of
the attack, then he is not on top of his game,” it said.
ACN wondered when it became a sin for any Nigerian, including elected
officials, to visit any part of the country as the Governors did,
saying there can be no justification other than organized political
rascality for a group of paid hoodlums to invade a secure environment
like the airport and pelt the convoy bearing the Governors with all
sorts of objects.
The party wondered why the Police could not provideย adequate security for the visiting state chief executives and restrained the hired scallywags from their audacious action.
”Would the police have allowed tramps to attack the Governors if they
were visiting the President? Would the police in Rivers have
allowed vagrants to act freely if those visiting Port Harcourt had
come in solidarity with the five renegade members of the State House
of Assembly? The unprofessional behaviour of the police in Rivers is
the reason that Nigerians have accused the state police command of
bias and called for the re-deployment of its ‘political’ Commissioner,
Mbu Joseph Mbu.
”The visiting Governors were right to have visited their Rivers’
counterpart, in the face of the siege on him by renegades being
teleguided from higher quarters. They are right to have expressed solidarity with
Gov. Amaechi, the Chairman of the Nigerian Governors’ Forum. We
salute the Governors as true patriots and the real sustainers of our
Constitution, and we demand appropriate sanctions for those whose
dereliction of duty put the Governors’ lives in danger,” it said.
ACN repeated its earlier warning against any contrived crisis in any
part of the country as a way of pushing the country into a perpetual
state of chaos, thus ensuring there will be no elections in 2015.
”The politics of 2015 cannot be removed from what is happening in
Rivers. We have had cause to warn Nigerians to be vigilant against
those who will foment trouble where there is none, just to put in abeyance the
2015 elections, especially where the emerging signals point to the
fact that they will be rejected by voters. Those who are afraid of free and fair
elections in 2015 will do anything to prevent one. Therefore, we are
repeating our call on all Nigerians to be vigilant, because eternal vigilance is
the price of liberty,” the party said.
