Rivers State Reveals How Amaechi Is Trying To Deceive Igbos In Rivers
Rotimi Amaechi has been accused by the Rivers State government of attempting to promote enmity between Igbo and state people.
This was in response to his recent remarks about the abandonment of legally foreclosed non-indigenous land in Rivers State.
Following the Nigerian Civil War, the military government deemed Igbo property owners’ possessions to be abandoned.
Yet, Amaechi, a former Rivers governor, promised supporters of his godson and APC governorship candidate Tonye Cole that if Cole wins the March 18 governorship election, he would return the Igbos’ assets.
Rivers State Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice, Prof. Zacchaeus Adangor, SAN, questioned the former minister’s allegation in a speech at Government House in Port Harcourt following the State Executive Council meeting presided over by Governor Nyesom Ezenwo Wike.
Adangor chastised Amaechi for his arrogant attempt to use the contentious subject of vacant land for political advantage.
“You will recall that the Abandoned Property Edit No. 8 of 1969 formed the Abandoned Property Custody and Management Authority and charged that authority with handling the property of non-indigenous people who were left neglected during the Civil War,” he stated.
“The validity of that law has been examined in various decisions of our court, including that of the Supreme Court and that law is still a subsisting statute, and it has never been invalidated by any judgment of the court.
“It is, therefore, palpably injurious if not entirely misleading for someone to endeavor to politicize the subject of abandoned property. As far as we are concerned, the case is legally closed and cannot be revived.”
According to the attorney general, Amaechi’s detrimental political behavior regarding the subject of unoccupied land was not done in the best interests of Rivers State.
“And we must denounce it completely. It is repugnant, unworthy of a leader, and every right-thinking person of this society must denounce it,” he concluded.
Amaechi appears to be suffering from selective amnesia, according to Chris Finebone, the state’s information and communications commissioner.
Amaechi, he said, has remedied the abandoned property issue during his lengthy stint as Speaker of the Rivers State House of Assembly.
He questioned why the same Amaechi would vow to bring up the subject of abandoned land again for purely political motives, duping Igbo elders in order to get Tonye Cole’s votes.
He said: “This is what has appalled people across, not just Rivers State today, but across even Bayelsa. We have received calls from everywhere condemning this kind of rascality, and then it beats the imagination that somebody who probably did not have any grasp on the issue of abandoned property, will simply jump into the political arena and want to harvest from it by offering people what is even beyond him, what he cannot offer, talk less of somebody he is bringing in to offer.
So, we are condemning this. We are joining other well-meaning Rivers people to condemn this kind of rascality and to warn the former governor (Amaechi) to steer clear from deceiving people. He has no power whatsoever to revisit the issue of abandoned property. That is a matter that touches on the very fabric of everyday Rivers man’s conscience.”
