As Amaechi re-asserts control over Obi/Akpor
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Rivers State yesterday faulted Governor Chibuike Amaechi’s plan to set up caretaker committees to replace outgoing local government council chairmen. This was even as it called for the probe of the out-going chairmen.
Amaechi had on Saturday dissolved 21 out of the 23 councils in the state, setting up caretaker committees for each as the tenure of the existing chairmen ended a day earlier. PDP’s rejection of the caretaker committees followed the inauguration of a new committee in Obi/Akpor council area yesterday as the state government reasserted control over the council area with a new chairman, who dissolved all existing committees on ground after he was sworn in.
Describing the new caretaker committees as unconstitutional, the party in a statement signed by Jerry Needam, Special Adviser, Media to the Chairman, Prince Felix Obuah, said the only rationale for Amaechi’s action over outright council election is the fear of losing to the PDP, knowing that Rivers State is basically a PDP state. The statement also queried the essence of setting up and stupendously sustaining the state electoral body, RSIEC, when it would not be allowed to perform its statutory functions. Accusing the out-going council chairmen of ‘financial waywardness and running their councils aground,’ the PDP said it was not enough to sack them, but that they should be made to give account of how they spent the huge resources allocated to them in the last three years.
The party also recalled allegations of financial donations and illegal contributions by the council chairmen to Governor Amaechi’s wife, purportedly to aid her pet project, the Empowerment Support Initiative (ESI), which it said, neither Amaechi nor his wife, Judith, has denied till date.
“To prove his persistent claim of running a transparent government, the PDP called on Amaechi to initiate a probe into these serious and other sundry allegations of misappropriation of council funds by these council chairmen,” the party said.
At Rumuodomaya, headquarters of Obi/Akpor council area, the newly appointed Chairman, Caretaker Committee, Dr. Lawrence Chijioke Chuku, ordered that the office of the embattled former Chairman, Prince Timothy Nsirim, should be broken. Shortly after swearing in other members of the committee and principal officers, Chuku, accompanied by his officers, supervised the breaking of the former chairman’s office.
He had announced the immediate dissolution of all committees and task force in the council earlier in his remarks, saying; “By the powers vested on me as chairman of the caretaker committee, I dissolve all revenue bodies.” He was among the 21 caretaker committee chairmen sworn-in at the weekend, by Governor Chibuike Amaechi.
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