Some members of the All Progressives Congress (APC) loyal to the Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, yesterday threatened to burn down Rivers State if Governor Nyesom Wike and Senator Magnus Abe take any action that would lead to the suspension of Amaechi from the ruling party.
In a viral video, the spokesman for the group accused the suspended state chairman, Hon. Igo Aguma and Abe of working with Wike in a bid to secure a court injunction suspending Amaechi from the party.
The minister’s loyalists, who spoke shortly after Aguma was suspended by the party, warned that they were ready to die for Amaechi.
The spokesman, surrounded by other Amaechi loyalists, also threatened to shut down federal agencies and multinational oil companies, just as he threatened to “destroy everything and put Rivers State in crisis.”
He said:” If any attempt by APC members led by Senator Magnus Abe and Hon. Igo Aguma who are working with Governor Nyesom Wike to, on Monday, or on any other day, go to take injunction or order restraining Amaechi or call for Amaechi’s expulsion from the APC in Rivers State, it means that Rivers will be in crisis.
“President Muhammadu Buhari is the president, we love you… But we want you to call the Chief of Army Staff, the IGP and the DG DSS to order. And we also extend that order to the Rivers State judiciary that have made themselves the welfare company of Wike.
“If they do anything against His Excellency, Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi, we are going to burn down Rivers State. We are going to shut down every federal agency, every multinational company.
“We are going to tell them that Amaechi is not a man to toy with. We will make sure that any man that wants to live, we will live with him. We are warning Magnus Abe and Igo Aguma and all of them. What is their business with what is happening in Edo? It has exposed them and exposed their allegiance and the people they are working with.
“We will not be alive to see them to be alive to do what they want to do against Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi. It is either we all die together and forget about Rivers State or we harmonize in peace. We are saying it now that it has not happened.”
In another video that has also gone viral, a group of APC members also loyal to Amaechi dismissed the threat issued by the earlier speaker, who spoke at a different location.
Chibuike Ikenga, who introduced himself as the leader of Amaechi team in Ikwerre Local Government Area, noted that the comments of the former speaker were not Amaechi’s position.
Ikenga said: “We have seen and watched the viral video on the internet claiming that they want to destroy Rivers State, Rivers assets and some indigenes of Rivers because of party differences.
“It is not Amaechi’s position. The Amaechi we know is peace-loving, he is a democrat. Amaechi does not encourage brigandage. Amaechi does not encourage all kinds of heinous activities and crimes to disturb the state. We do not know those young men; the people you’re seeing here are the leaders of APC in Ikwerre LGA.
“We want to use this opportunity to disassociate ourselves from that viral video that a group of youth organization called NNC. We do not know them, but as Ikwerre people, our son’s name has been mentioned. We are here to tell the people that we do not support that level of madness.
“So, we support and stand by Amaechi. We also stand by the processes of the courts.”
-New Telegraph