Rivers State Now Under Siege By Kidnappers, Vehicle-Snatchers, Other Criminals
The Rivers State Chapter of All Progressives Congress, APC, has observed that gradually but steadily our beloved state has come under the firm grip of organised crime gangs specialised in kidnapping, car-snatching, assassinations, armed-robberies and other sundry crimes.
When the Nyesom Wike government made a lot of showboating about enacting a new anti-kidnapping law as its response to the rising spate of kidnapping in the state, we knew it would make no impact because the hood does not make the monk. Kidnapping continued apace.
The APC was clearly proved right when on Sunday, August 30, 2015, the international journalist, Dornu Kogbara was abducted by unknown gunmen from her residence in Port Harcourt.
What followed was a gale of national and international outcry calling for her immediate and safe rescue.
Very recently, unknown gunmen abducted the son of the newly appointed Vice Chancellor of the University of Port Harcourt, Prof. Ndowa Laale. The VC’s son, Ejiru Laale was kidnapped around 7pm in his father’s home at Ebubu, Eleme in Rivers State. This kidnap took place on a day that the media reported about 5 other kidnappings at different locations in the state.
The truth is that aside from the high profile incidences of kidnap that attract public outcry, tens of kidnappings take place every other week across Rivers State without mention in the media.
The position of the APC is that the Nyesom Wike-led government in Rivers State cannot fight kidnapping, car-snatching, assassinations, armed-robberies and sundry crimes because these vices are the very foundations on which this government is built upon. Every government can only offer what it has and can never give the people what it does not have.
Another reason the state government cannot provide security for lives and property in the state is that the sitting governor, Nyesom Wike has chosen to pre-occupy himself with moving around judges and election petition tribunals and compromising them with the commonwealth of Rivers people.
Having been caught trying to compromise the Chief Justice of Nigeria [CJN], he now drops a decoy of having travelled abroad while he is actually holed up in his numerous mansions that dot Abuja doing what he does best.
Sadly, despite the state government’s inability and total lack of any moral fibre to fight crime, the governor, Nyesom Wike recently looked into the eyes of the world and pronounced that he is fighting crime and many investors are returning to Rivers State.
The APC would like to call on all the good people of Rivers State to continue to trust in the ability of the Almighty God to soon send a God-fearing government whose mandate will come from the people to replace the present government of buccaneers who owe their existence to the criminal world and their conscience to other gods.
Chris Finebone
State Publicity Secretary
Tues, Sept. 29, 2015