Governor Siminalayi Fubara of Rivers State has said his opponents tried to use a dynamite attack at the Hotel Presidential in the state capital to give the impression that the state is unsafe and, by extension, make another case for the declaration of a state of emergency.
Amid the ongoing local government area crisis rocking the state, the All Progressives Congress (APC) caretaker committee in Rivers has called for emergency rule in Rivers.
Referring to the incident of a dynamite explosion during a protest by supporters of former local government chairmen, the governor said God destroyed the plans of those behind the evil plot. But the APC said the governor was only attempting to adopt cheap blackmail to curry sympathy.
The governor spoke when he received, on a courtesy visit, a delegation of the Senate Committee on Privatisation and Commercialisation, led by its chairman, Senator Orji Uzo Kalu, at the Government House, Port Harcourt, on Wednesday.
He said, "As a matter of fact, let me tell you; I know of everything that is happening. Yesterday (Tuesday), they (the protesters) were aware that you were in the state. So, there was an attempt to create a serious problem.
"In fact, there was a plan to detonate dynamite at the Hotel Presidential because you people were there. But because of this God we serve, it happened that the man who was trying to do it detonated it, but just a few seconds later, it blew his hands off.
"The idea was that as you were hearing the state of emergency, it would be that by the time they finished, when you returned to have your sitting tomorrow (Thursday), the debate would be from somebody from this state who called you people not to come. He would then raise the issue of the state of emergency and say that, after all, distinguished colleagues saw it happen while in Rivers State."
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The governor wondered why it seems that the law is silent or inactive to take its course on offenders because somebody appears to be bigger than the law on the agitation.
He clarified that he was not fighting anybody but rather defending the state and protecting supporters of the interests of Rivers against those who feel that they own the lives of others.
He said there was no governor in Nigeria that could take 10 percent of the abuse railed at him by former local government chairmen.
Reacting, the chairman of the APC caretaker committee in the state, Tony Okocha, said the governor was only adopting cheap blackmail to curry sympathy.
"It is cheap blackmail and too pedestrian. He should hold himself responsible for mobilising criminals and kidnappers in his inordinate bid to build a political structure. Having mobilised ex-militants from the creeks and shanties with their sophisticated weapons, he has succeeded in heightening insecurity in different shades in the state. He should stop the bulk-passing," Okocha stated in a message while responding to an enquiry from our correspondent.
