Leader of the Pan-Niger Delta Forum (PANDEF), Pa Edwin Clark, has described the truce reached between Governor Siminalayi Fubara and his predecessor, Nyesom Wike, who is now the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) as as an ‘imposed settlement’.
In a press conference in Abuja on Tuesday which was monitored by Africa Today News, New York, the elder statesmen declared that the communique issued at the end of the reconciliatory meeting was “baffling, appalling and unacceptable” to the people, especially, the Ijaw ethnic nationality.
Recall that after weeks of political tsunami in Rivers, the President on Monday night held a meeting with Wike, Fubara and other political gladiators in the state at the Aso Villa in Abuja.
Rivers State has been a theatre of the absurd in the last three months with the state House of Assembly serving as the “boxing ring”. The rift between Wike and Fubara split lawmakers in the House with 27 of them decamping from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), a party in whose central government Wike currently serves as minister.
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The feud also saw the emergence of parallel sittings, an impeachment plot against the governor, the demolition of the Assembly complex, and a gale of resignations of pro-Wike commissioners in Fubara’s cabinet.
The President and some elder statesmen had intervened in the crisis earlier in October but it degenerated into a full-blown fight.
However, after Monday’s meeting, the warring parties agreed that all matters instituted in the courts by Fubara, and his team, be withdrawn immediately. The
Wike camp also agreed that all impeachment proceedings initiated against the governor by the Rivers State House of Assembly be dropped immediately
The parties in the feud resolved to recognise the leadership of Martin Amaewhule in the Rivers State House of Assembly and not that of Edison Ehie.
In his immediate response to the armistice, Clark said, ‘From the terms of settlement, it is obvious that President Tinubu sees his role as a mediator, to once again, show gratitude to the current Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), for ‘delivering’ Rivers State to him during the past Presidential elections, having first of gratified him by making him the Minister of FCT.’
‘The eight resolutions reached, are the most unconstitutional, absurd and obnoxious resolutions at settling feuding parties that I have ever witnessed in my life.’
The nonagenarian said Fubara was ‘ambushed and intimidated into submission’.
‘President Tinubu should know that with all the powers he possesses, he cannot override the Constitution. From all that transpired at the meeting, the laws of the land have not been obeyed. President Tinubu simply sat over a meeting where the Constitution, which is the fulcrum of his office as President and which he swore to uphold and abide by, was truncated and desecrated.”
‘Like I said, we will go to go court to resist this oppressive action using all available constitutional and legal means. It is on this note I wish to appeal to the youths who are aggrieved, to remain calm, as we will use legal means to dethrone this hydra headed monster, called oppression,‘ Clark said.