Rivers cautions against misrule, parties score Buhari, El-Rufai low

Governor Nyesom Wike has cautioned residents against towing the old way of returning power to desperate people bent on ‘plundering the scarce resources of Rivers State’.

Speaking yesterday inn Port Harcourt at an event to mark his third year in office, the governor accused his detractors of “deliberately sabotaging Rivers security architecture in a bid to portray the state as insecure for purely political ends.”

Wike explained his administration’ investment in security had resulted in a more secured state where businesses and people thrive.

“The state is more stable, secured, peaceful and growing in strength despite the efforts by detractors to deliberately sabotage our security architecture and otherwise portray the state as insecure for purely political ends,” he said.

He urged the people to defend the state ahead of the 2019 general elections, alleging that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) were bent on manipulating the process.

He said: “We derive our inspiration from God and our faith in the future greatness of our state remains unshaken. We must therefore be prepared to defend our inalienable rights to freely and fairly elect our leaders, as freedom is never given. It is always taken and defended through perpetual vigilance.”

However, the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and the main opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) have disagreed over the performances of President Muhammadu Buhari and Governor Nasir El-Rufai in Kaduna State.

The state chapter of the PDP described the 2018 Democracy Day as an event that calls for reflection, saying there was nothing to celebrate in the last three years.

In a statement, the state publicity secretary, Abraham Catoh, pointed out that “the APC is trying so hard to destroy the separation of powers between the National Assembly and the Executive.”

But the factional APC leader and governorship aspirant in the state, Alhaji Isa Mohammed Ashiru, lamented “Kaduna had gone through its worse challenges in the past three years of the present administration.”