PDP Flays Amaechi’s Attack on Dme Patience Jonathan

By PDP Rivers State

The wife of President Goodluck Jonathan and mother of the nation, Dame Patience Jonathan was in Rivers State last week on a two-day working visit during which she launched the Women for Change Initiative (WFCI), a pet project designed to ensure 35% of women involvement in political administration at all levels of governance in the State.


A civic reception was held in honour of the First Lady at the Sharks Stadium on Monday, August 23, 2010 after which a State banquet was organized at Government House, Port Harcourt .


But the courtesy and smoothness of the official visit disappeared the second day as a result of the naked incivility displayed by the State governor, Rt. Hon Rotimi Amaechi in Okrika, the home town of the First Lady.


Gov Amaechi's repeated use of the word “must” in conveying his inconsiderate and inhuman intention to raze Port Harcourt waterfronts and buildings around a school in Okrika drew a motherly rebuke from the president's wife, in reaction to which the governor childishly and ill-advisedly abandoned his guest's entourage and stayed put in his car during a reception in her honour by Okrikans.


The unfortunate development prompted the immediate recall of the august visitor by the presidency, and Mrs Jonathan truncated her itinerary and flew back to Abuja after the reception in Okrika, shelving a judiciary programme scheduled to be hosted by the State chief judge, Justice Iche Ndu and a visit to a Model Secondary School in Eleme, among others.


Members of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Rivers State , while distancing ourselves from the governor's ungentlemanly and unpolished behaviour, condemn holistically his lack of courtesy and official decorum.


The governor's attitude smacks of indecency, political indiscipline, behavioural stigma, ineptitude, ingratitude, intolerance, irresponsibility, uncivilization and more in an era where love and understanding are watch words and measured diplomacy readily finds a place in leading another down the path of tolerance without giving away one's ill intentions and displeasures, especially at a glance.

As the president's wife and First Lady of Nigeria, Dame Patience Jonathan is not only the mother of all Nigerians, including Governor Amaechi, but also our own flesh and blood being our son's wife and, herself, a daughter of the region and Wakirike ethnic nationality within jurisdiction of the governor.


His behaviour, therefore was akin to abandoning and exposing his own mother to insecurity for the simple reason that she advised him against the use of inflammatory words on issues affecting the lives and welfare of his people in a democratic dispensation where dictatorship has no space.


Exposing the president's wife and his august guest to insecurity during the visit was a grave offence against the PDP, Rivers State , the South-South region and Nigeria as a whole for it is a known fact that governors do not break protocol and opt out of the entourage of any visiting functionary to the State. There was, therefore no reason for him to have treated the president's wife the way he did, a position that was widely reported by the media and flayed by all right-thinking individuals.


While we urge President Jonathan, Nigerians and the PDP to view the shocking incident seriously and properly examine all imputations as to what intent and purposes the governor may have so acted, we make bold to caution the governor against volatile and irascible inclinations.


The governor must grow up fast, if for nothing else, for the fact that he presides over the welfare of millions of mature Rivers sons and daughters who appreciate what it takes to be responsible at any given time, no matter the circumstances.


The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Rivers State hereby distances herself from all actions taken by Governor Rotimi Amaechi.


We also condemn in very strong terms the sacking of the elected council chairman of Okrika Local Government Council, the traditional Local Government Area of the First Lady, Mr Tamunokuro George Obba on the mere reason that he organized a civic reception for the visiting First Lady, a daughter of the soil, while not sparing an iota of our displeasure at the clamp-down on supporters of the President Goodluck Jonathan in the area by the authorities in the State.


Signed


Jerry Needam, JP
Publicity Secretary
PDP, Rivers State