Oil dispute: Amanayabo betrayed Rivers people, says Amaechi

Governor Rotimi Amaechi of Rivers State has said that the ceding of the state oil wells to other states by the Federal Government is aimed at undermining the state development.

He said this during a phone-in programme on 95.1 FM radio station monitored by our correspondent in Port Harcourt on Wednesday.

The governor  criticised a traditional ruler in the state for praising   President Goodluck Jonathan in the handling of the   issue.

He said, “I heard my colleague; the governor of Bayelsa State went to Abonema the other day and the Amanayabo of Abonema received him and said he (Amanayabo) was satisfied with the way the President was handling the oil wells.

“For me, that is a betrayal of his people. He is a king in Kalabari Kingdom and he says he is satisfied that the Federal Government has taken the oil wells and Bayelsa is receiving the money. It is not about me, it is about the Kalabari people; it is about the Rivers State people.

“When the governor of Bayelsa came, what was he going to do in Abonema? Why would the traditional ruler of Abonema not tell the governor of Bayelsa that the people of Abonema are not happy over the oil wells taken away from them? The traditional ruler was expected to say ‘return our oil wells to us.’

“I have told the President that if he returns the oil wells, I will support him. But he (President) can’t. It doesn’t matter whether I go back to the PDP or not, I will support him. He has not been able and he will not.

“If he (President Jonathan) thinks it will favour me, let them keep the money in an escrow account and give it to the next government in Rivers State. What I want to see done is the fact that our resources are returned to us.”

Amaechi also decried the inclusion of his administration’s projects and those of  the Niger Delta Development Commission   as part of  Federal Government’s projects in the state.

He said, “I heard they went to the internet and enumerated all the projects the  NDDC did in Rivers State from when Chief Olusegun  Obasanjo established the commission and said they were what the President (Jonathan) achieved in Rivers State.

“Let us even assume it is true that the President is building six-classroom blocks, they have forgotten that we have demolished those six-classroom blocks. We have phased them out because they don’t have sanitary facilities, computer labs and libraries like those in  our schools.”

Copyright PUNCH.