Respect Rivers Peace Accord, Group Tells Wike

The Coalition of Minority and Ethnic Groups in Nigeria has urged the immediate-past Rivers State governor and Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nyesom Wike, to respect the conditions of the peace accord initiated by President Bola Tinubu in the interest of peace and togetherness.

LEADERSHIP reports that the Peace Accord was midwifed on the heels of the political crisis in Rivers State and its attendant tension.

The leader of the group, Dan Okwa, at a press conference in Abuja on Thursday, lamented that the judiciary was being allegedly used to undermine the incumbent Rivers State governor, Siminalayi Fubara, and humiliate his perceived loyalists.

Okwa said the plot to arraign the former Speaker of the Rivers State House of Assembly, now Chief of Staff to the Governor, Edison Ehie, over arson is “unacceptable to the spirit of peace”.

“We are strongly of the view that the peace agreement must not be seen to be one-sided. Our assertion in this regard arose from the recent development in which the judiciary is being used to undermine the State Governor.

“Our Coalition is therefore calling on the Federal Government and its agencies to in the spirit of the Peace Accord withdraw all the charges against Edison Ehie and all other Fubara’s loyalists.

“Since Governor Fubara has gone out of his way to give juicy appointments to loyalists of the FCT minister, those who are in the Governor’s camp should not be treated differently. Hounding them with the judiciary of federal institutions will only cause fresh provocations that make a mockery of the efforts that President Tinubu has put into restoring peace to that part of the country.

“It will be most disrespectful to repay Mr President with such behaviour when he has shown the way in how to give peace a chance. Our Coalition consequently frowns at attempts to use the judiciary or agencies of the Federal government to witch-hunt officials of the Rivers State Government.

“We appeal to Governor Fubara and his camp to continue to abide by the terms of the accord in the belief that the Wike’s camp will come around. The country cannot afford a meltdown in Rivers State now and at any other time,” Okwa stated.