Two Key Issues In The Rivers State Re-Run Elections

• Bringing Rotimi Amaechi to Justice:

As governor of Rivers State, Mr Amaechi ran a dizzyingly corrupt and failed administration. He awarded contracts worth billions of Naira without following due process. Most of these contracts were never executed or were simply abandoned.

In fact, despite receiving over three trillion Naira in revenue in eight years, the Amaechi administration left the most abandoned projects in the history of Rivers State, since 1967.

Mr Amaechi has been indicted for stealing public funds by a court-approved commission of inquiry in Rivers State. In the weeks and months ahead, the Rivers State Government plans to commence his prosecution in multiple courts and jurisdictions, in Nigeria and abroad.

Mr Amaechi is therefore literally fighting for his life in these re-run elections.

He is seeking to evade justice, by rigging the legislative elections on Saturday.

Since the APC is not popular in Rivers State, Amaechi’s plan is to rig in as many APC legislators into the Rivers State House of Assembly as possible.

Once in the House, the APC legislators would begin impeachment proceedings against Governor Nyesom Wike within the first week of their sitting.

This explains Mr Amaechi’s deadly desperation.

But the people of Rivers State are as determined as iron to stop him.

Vote for PDP candidates and bring Amaechi to justice.

• The future of Rivers State is at stake.

Rivers State is the richest state per capita in Nigeria. But 90 per cent of its people live in insufferable poverty. This is not an accident. It is the result of the mind-boggling corruption of the Amaechi administration.

Money meant for youth empowerment and the development of the state was diverted by Amaechi to fund the All Progressives Congress and its candidates nationwide.

The defeat of the APC in the Rivers State governorship election was therefore a mortal blow to the APC’s cash flow.

But Rotimi Amaechi is desperate to lay his icy hands on the treasury of the state once again. Amaechi’s plan is to continue to use Rivers State’s treasury as collateral, in exchange for his political relevance in Abuja.

This means the people of Rivers State would be condemned to perpetual poverty if Mr Amaechi succeeds in rigging in his APC stooges to power.

I have friends and even family members who support the APC as a political party, and i respect their preference

But when i ask how they feel about Amaechi diverting Rivers State money to pay the salaries of thousands of teachers in Osun State, in order to prop up the APC governor there, they look dazed.

So this is not politics as usual. We are fighting for the very survival of Rivers State itself. This is the struggle of our generation

For the people of Rivers State therefore, the re-run elections are a life and death battle.

Vote for PDP candidates and keep the wealth of Rivers State for the people of Rivers State.