Amaechi threatens to dump PDP

•Says: If they suffocate us in PDP and we need to move, we move.

Hours after embracing President Goodluck Jonathan at Port Harcourt Airport, Rivers State Governor, Rotimi Amaechi yesterday evening raised the stakes in the crisis rocking the state branch of the party by threatening to dump the ruling People’s Democratic Party(PDP).

He vowed to leave for any other party if PDP insists on the reversal of the suspension of Obio/Akpor local council executives as pre-condition for him to remain in the party.

Amaechi said this while reacting to questions by the Bishop of the Anglican Communion, Niger Delta Diocese, Rev. Ignatius C. Kattey, at the 60th birthday thanksgiving service of the former president of the Nigeria Bar Association (NBA), O.C.J. Okocha (SAN) in Port Harcourt.

He said the PDP should not give him conditions over Obio/Akpor, saying that it was only the lawmakers who suspended them, or the court that could lift the suspension.

The governor explained to the crowd at the service that the law that empowered the lawmakers to suspend council officials also empowered him to dissolve the executive, but said he has not done that.

“If they reverse it tomorrow, there is one more option left to me, I can dissolve the entire executive. The police can remain there as much as they want, it is Obio/Akpor people’s problem; the money is going nowhere.

“But we have saved you too, because the reason they suspended the executives is because they said, ‘let us investigate the place because there was corruption.’ If they investigate and the chairman and the councillors are not corrupt, they will call them back. But if they go to court to try to stop them, they will do their function.

“I want to hear the court say they have no right to do their function. Whatever the court says is what the Rivers State Government will do. We will obey the court, but outside that, nobody, not PDP, can give me condition. Is there only one party in Nigeria? Why would they give me condition? They will not give me condition.

“I lead the people of Rivers State and I will lead you. If they suffocate us in PDP and we need to move, we move!

“We will continue to struggle for our rights, and that includes our oil wells. You will hear the truth of this fight in December, January. I will address the state and I will tell you the truth of the fight.

“Not between me and these people here, they are not a problem to me. But when election comes, the Rivers people will be given the chance to choose who they want,” he said

The Bishop had at the beginning of his sermon at the church service sought to confirm if Amaechi had been given the re-instatement of the suspended executives of Obio/Akpor council as condition to end the crisis, and what he Ameachi was doing about it.

Kattey also asked the embattled Nigeria Governors Forum (NGF) chairman if there was really an election that returned him as the chairman of the forum, and urged him to tell the truth.

Responding, Amaechi said: “I don’t lie. If I will go to hell, lie wouldn’t be one of the reasons for my going to hell. Take it from me, those who lie don’t have courage, I have them in quantum; my children have excess of courage.

“Your Grace, there was an election, your Grace, they are not denying that there was no election. They said before the election some people have signed documents for them, and they were 19, but in contesting the election, those 19 changed their minds and voted for me, and when the battle was on it was clear that it was between the ‘Villa’ and me, and I won.

“There was an election and they were properly defeated and they saw the consequences of defeat. It is a Governors’ Forum I have led for two years. Even the 16 told me ‘you were wonderful as the chairman, but you know where the pressure is coming from and we can’t avoid the pressure, I won and won well, tomorrow morning (today), I will win again.”

Twenty-seven members of the Rivers State House of Assembly in April suspended the Executive Chairman of Obio/Akpor Local Government Area, Timothy Nsirim and his councillors for alleged financial recklessness.

Efforts by the Felix Obuah-led state PDP to force the lawmakers to re-instate the council executives failed. The national body of PDP then suspended Amaechi shortly after his victory of the NGF election – hinging the action on his refusal to recall the council executive.