AMAECHI TELLS KALABARI PEOPLE "VOTE JONATHAN OUT"

The rift between President Goodluck Jonathan and Governor Chibuike Amaechi resurfaced over the weekend when the  governor called on Rivers people, especially the Kalabari,  to vote him out in 2015 Presidential election.

Amaechi spoke  at  Degema, the headquarters of Degema Local Government Area of the state, after commissioning an 8,000-sitting capacity football stadium complex built by the local government administration.

Amaechi said the President Jonathan led  PDP government  has nothing to offer Kalabari and Rivers  people, stressing that  one way for the people to regain their lost oil wells and benefit from democratic governance was to vote out the PDP.

Amaechi explained that the president was taking sides in the Soku oil wells matter given the reason why the wells were ceded to Bayelsa State.

“In that meeting, before Kalabari chiefs, Mr. President said to us, ‘you people call it Soku, we from Bayelsa call it Oluasiri’. ‘Is Soku Oluasiri?’

“As President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, he is not supposed to take sides. The moment he said it is called Oluasiri, he is taking sides and we have no faith in Mr. President returning our oil wells. They have taken the (Soku) oil wells, they are spending the money because they have the  presidency. The only way you can get back your oil wells is to vote out Mr. President. The only opportunity you have now is your vote. Vote him out, he is not Rivers, he is from Bayelsa. He has not and will not serve us and I have said here, let Mr. President tell us what he has done for us,” he  said.

He also alleged that his efforts to build trans-Kalabari road in the state and reconstruct the  Emohua-Abonnema federal road already in deplorable condition was frustrated by the president.

He therefore called on the people to fight for their rights by using their voting strength to correct all anomalies by voting out the ruling PDP.

He added: “When I was coming here (to Degema), I saw the Emohua-Abonnema road, it’s going bad. When I met the president with Kalabari chiefs and I told the president: ‘that road is going very bad, if we don’t intervene now, that road will soon be impassable. Mr. President, that road is a federal road’, he said he knows. And I then asked: ‘Mr. President, can the Rivers State government reconstruct that road? Because that is the only road by which Kalabari people come out to town, but Mr. President said no.”

“He told me ‘no’ and said he(federal government) would do it. One year plus, he has not done it. So what you will do to make sure you have a road next year is to vote out PDP. If Mr President says he is our brother, because I hear Kalabari people say he is our brother, let him do our road, let him return our Soku oil wells.”

“I begged him that the federal government is owing Rivers State N105 billion, he should take N50 billion from there and help me construct the trans-Kalabari road, he said, ‘Amaechi, I will do it’. Three years after, Mr. President has not done it, so he is not a Kalabari man.”