The Chairman of the Senate Committee on Petroleum (Downstream) in the 7th National Assembly, Senator Magnus Ngei Abe, is the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) for the Rivers Southeast Senatorial District in the inconclusive March 19 rerun. Abe, who hails from Bera-Ogoni in Gokana LGA of Rivers State, is a former Secretary to the State Government (SSG) and Rivers ex-Commissioner for Information.
In this interview with BISI OLANIYI in Port Harcourt, the former Minority Leader in the Rivers House of Assembly says the President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration must quickly step in and put an end to the politically-motivated killings and assassinations in Rivers State.
He also expresses surprise that there are communities in Rivers that the people have publicly banned the holding of APC meetings, with the support of militants in the communities and they will ask APC members to leave the communities, among other issues.
Excerpts:
There are lots of crises, killings in Rivers State. From all indications, the All Progressives Congress (APC) seems to be at the receiving end. How do you view the situation?
It is really quite unfortunate that in 2016 Nigeria, we will be discussing these issues. The unprecedented level of violence that we witnessed in the 2015 elections has not abated. In fact, the 2016 rerun elections in Rivers state were actually a bit worse than the 2015 elections.
Even after the elections, the level of threats on members of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the state is still high. Indeed, in many communities in my senatorial district (comprising the four Ogoni LGAs Khana, Gokana, Tai and Eleme, as well as Andoni, Opobo/Nkoro and Oyigbo councils), which is the district where the elections were postponed, a lot of our party members perpetually run out of their communities, because a lot of them are being attacked and killed.
In fact, the very one that has shivers down my spine is the case of one young man, who used to be in the opposition and just recently joined APC. He was with me last night, telling me that he was in danger and that I am in danger. Just this afternoon, we got information that he was assassinated at a burial.
People went to a burial where everybody was gathered, the assassins came down in cars, opened fire on him in the burial in front of all the thousands of people and killed him in cold blood. I am still in shock. We keep saying to people that we are in danger; something should be done. It is this same group of people that have been attacking and killing people in the area over the past three four years.
It was the same gang that attacked members of the APC when they were going to attend the President Muhammadu Buhari’s inaugural rally in Port Harcourt and the President visited them in the hospital. They are still killing people up till now. It was the same gang that attacked the APC rally at Bori in Khana LGA three times, publicly opened fire on people.
It was a similar gang operating in another area that attacked the APC rally in Okrika. The funny thing is that in all these things that are happening, there is no investigation going on. Nobody is being arrested, prosecuted or detained.
With the current situation in Rivers State with inconclusive elections and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) clearly stating that it will not hold any election in the state, until the security situation improves, what is the way forward?
I do not think that that statement by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) is in consonance with the sovereignty of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. We have laws in this country and what makes a country sovereign is the fact that your laws are effective within your own borders.
The Nigerian law does not anticipate a situation where INEC has to take permission from any group of criminals before it can conduct elections. That is not the law. The law is that INEC is to set a date for elections and the Nigerian state is to make the place conducive for elections. That is the law.
So, if the place is not conducive and people do not come to agree with INEC up till 2019, does it mean that the elections will not hold? What if the same situation is replicated all across the country, are we going to now cancel holding of elections in this country? The same lack of security that is making it impossible for us to hold elections is making it impossible for ordinary Nigerians to go about their normal business.
You have been part of the whole political activities that have been going on in Rivers State. How will you describe the roles of security agencies, especially the police, military, DSS and others in the March 19 rerun in Rivers State?
You cannot hold the security agencies directly responsible for what is happening in Rivers State. The governor (Nyesom Wike) is the chief security officer of the state. The Federal Government has effective command on the security agencies. Somebody has to give an order to the security agents to fish out the hoodlums and put a stop to these killings.
Somebody has to fund the order, when it is given. Somebody has to work with the security agencies to implement the order. As it is today, the security agencies are tired. If somebody is arrested now, before evening, people will call you from the highest levels of state government to release the person. They will ask, why are you arresting him?
If you dare charge the person to court and it goes to the Director of Public Prosecution (DPP), advice will be written. I mean there are all sorts of shenanigans that the government can use to make sure that people they want to protect are protected. The message is getting to the criminals that as long as they are in power, nothing will happen. That is what is emboldening them.
If you post policemen or soldiers, you deploy them to a place. Somebody is supposed to feed them, fund their presence there and provide water. They are human beings. People are supposed to support them. Where they do not get the support, who is going to be responsible for the kind of effectiveness that you expect from the security agencies?
There are just two ways of dealing with this thing. The Rivers state government is supposed to take the lead in putting a stop to the criminality, but let me give you an example. You heard what happened in Gokana LGA of Rivers state, when the current SSG (Kenneth Kobani, an indigene of Bodo-Ogoni in Gokana LGA) was arrested. He (SSG) is the Chairman of the Arrest Resistance Committee set up by the Rivers state government and at the place where he was arrested, members of the committee opened fire on the soldiers and bombed the INEC office in Gokana LGA.
In all Rivers governor has said, have you heard him mention the fact that assault weapons were used on youth corps members in Gokana LGA? Has he condemned it? He has not condemned it. Is he going to go after those who did it? He is not going to, because they are his boys. He set up the committee – Arrest Resistance. They were armed to resist arrest, even by the military. They are not afraid of the soldiers.
The police could not free the youth corps members who were held hostage there. So, the matter in Rivers state is serious beyond words and if the state government is going to put political expediency above the life of Nigerian citizens, then the Federal Government has the responsibility to step in, provide the leadership and resources necessary to bring this sad episode to an end. You cannot just blame security agencies. How are they going to achieve that?
You have just mentioned the Federal Government. Is APC’s government at the centre alive to its responsibility of protecting lives and property of Rivers residents?
APC is a political party. We have a government in Nigeria that is for all Nigerians. I have heard people say that those who are getting killed are cultists. Why is APC claiming everybody killed is its member? I have always responded by raising two issues. First is that whether the people are members of the APC or cultists, whoever, there is a process in Nigeria for taking human life and that process is not being followed in Rivers State.
So, it does not matter who these people are. The critical thing is that they are Nigerian citizens and this is not how their lives are supposed to be terminated at will in this country. APC is a political party. It has no power to actually do much. I am one of the leaders of APC.
Today, there are communities in Ogoni that have publicly banned the holding of APC meetings, with the support of militants in the communities, asking people who are members of APC to leave the communities. We have reported it to the security agencies. No action has been taken. So, what is the APC to do? This matter is strictly between the Federal and State Governments. They are the ones that have the powers of cohesion, resources and constitutional responsibility to deal with this issue.
If the Federal Government, because President Muhammadu Buhari does not want to intervene in the work of Rivers state, has kept quiet to give the state an opportunity to deal with this issue, should not be taken for granted. The security challenge in Rivers state is clearly not being dealt with by the state government. So, it is now up to the Federal Government to step in and take responsibility.
Somebody must be responsible for what is happening in Rivers state. It cannot be that it is nobody’s business. Neither can it be the business of APC or Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). This is the business of Nigeria and there are authorities responsible for what happens in Nigeria.
Why are some of your people working against you, to ensure you do not return to the Senate?
What I see going on is politics gone too far. Everybody knows that if there is an election in Rivers Southeast Senatorial District and the people are allowed to choose their representative, I will be chosen. Everybody knows that across the state. It is not a hidden matter, but everything is being done to stop the people to have the right of free choice.
The Rivers governor had gone to say, stop Senator Abe by all means and from that time till today, there has been no peace. Everything is being done to stop the people of the area from having the opportunity to elect a representative of their choice. Everything is being done to cow the electorate. Everything is being done to stop people from coming out to vote.
I have said it time without number that I am not asking for any favour. All I want is to create an atmosphere where people can vote and the votes can be counted. If that happens, win or lose, I stand by what the people decide, but there are people who are going out of their way to make sure that, that does not happen. That is the cause of everything that you are seeing here.
How will you describe the current situation in Rivers State?
There is nothing out of the ordinary that is going on in Rivers state other than the fact that you have an administration that has refused to put the security of lives and property against its own political interest. You have a situation where the laws of the Federal Republic of Nigeria are suspended in Rivers State. You have a situation where all the rights guaranteed by the Nigerian constitution to Nigerians are being denied members of the APC in Rivers state, including the right to life.
We have a situation where people have said that members of the APC are traitors and they should be killed. Even today that APC now constitutes the Federal Government, nobody has demanded that the people should be told that we have a constitutional right to belong to any party of our choice. There is nowhere else in this country where members of any political party-be it APC or PDP, are being targeted for extinction the way it is going on in Rivers statwe and nobody is saying anything.
What is the fear ahead?
I am afraid for my life. We have been talking and shouting and people keep going down one after another and nobody is doing anything. I mean I have never seen this kind of situation before. Prior to the rerun elections, we shouted and talked.
Everybody knew that it was going to be bloody in Rivers state. President Muhammadu Buhari himself gave an order that security agencies must make sure nothing untoward happened here and we saw the results. As we speak now, Rivers people, especially APC members, are still being killed or assassinated. Nobody is saying anything, but we will not stop talking.
Thenation…….
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