The Rivers State Government has described as unconscionable the attempt by former Minister of Transportation, Chibuike Amaechi, to instigate hostility between Igbos and the people of the State over legally foreclosed issue of abandoned property of non-indigenes in the state.
It will be recalled that Amaechi, a former governor of Rivers State, had recently promised the Igbos that if they voted for APC governorship candidate, Tonye Cole, in Saturday’s election, the State would return to Igbo owners their property declared abandoned by the military government immediately after the Nigerian Civil War.
But the Rivers State Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice, Prof. Zacchaeus Adangor, SAN, while addressing journalists in Government House, Port Harcourt after the State Executive Council meeting presided over by Governor Nyesom Wike, described Amaechi’s utterances as distasteful and an obnoxious attempt to play politics with the hot button issue of abandoned property that is considered legally closed and cannot be revisited.
According to him, the issue of abandoned property in Rivers State is essentially and palpably one of law.
“You will recall that the Abandoned Property Edit No. 8 of 1969 established the Abandoned Property Custody and Management Authority and charged that authority and the responsibility of managing the property of non indigene left unattended during the Civil War.
“The constitutionality of that law has been tested in several decisions of our court, including that of the Supreme Court and that law is still a subsisting law, and it has never been invalidated by any judgment of the court.”
“It is, therefore, palpably injurious if not completely misleading for anybody to seek to politicise the issue of abandoned poverty. The matter as far as we’re concerned, is closed legally close and cannot be revisited”, he said.
The Attorney General, therefore, declared that by playing toxic politics with abandoned property issue, Amaechi does not mean well for Rivers State.
“And we have to condemn it in its entirety. It is distasteful, It is unbecoming of a leader and every right thinking member of this society must condemn it”, he said.
Similarly, the Secretary to the Rivers State Government, Dr. Tammy Danagogo, emphasised that the State Executive Council in very strong terms condemned Amaechi’s recklessness in trying to reawaken the ghosts of the abandoned property issue in Rivers State.
“I’m sure everybody, all of us, we know that, that matter has long been buried, and it is no longer practical or feasible to reawaken it. It beats every reasonable imagination why anybody would want to carry politics that far.
“We are urging every Rivers man or woman and our Igbo brothers who have lived here peacefully with us to discountenance that misguided utterance which we all know was said or made, just to as it were, gain political mileage.”
On his part, the state Commissioner for Information and Communications, Chris Finebone, noted that Amaechi must apparently be suffering from selective amnesia, because as the Speaker of the Rivers State House of Assembly several years ago, he had declared the matter of abandoned property closed.
He wondered why the same Amaechi will today turn around to promise to revisit the issue of abandoned property just for political reasons, with the intent to deceive Igbo leaders just to garner illusive votes for Tonye Cole.
“This is what has appalled people across, not just Rivers State today, but across even Bayelsa. We have received calls from everywhere condemning this kind of rascality, and then it beats the imagination that somebody who probably did not have any grasp about the issue of abandoned property, will simply jump into the political arena and want to harvest from it by offering people what is even beyond him, what he cannot offer, talk less of somebody he is bringing in to offer.
“So, we are condemning this. We are joining other well meaning Rivers people to condemn this kind of rascality and to warn the former governor (Amaechi) to steer clear from deceiving people. He has no power whatsoever to revisit the issue of abandon property. That is a matter that touches on the very fabric of everyday Rivers man’s conscience.”
Meanwhile, the South-East spokesman of the Bola Tinubu Presidential Campaign Council, Dr. Josef Onoh, has also cautioned the former Minister for Transport, Chibuike Amaechi, not to resurrect the old wounds of the Port Harcourt abandoned property suffered by the Igbos in the 1970s.
He also warned Amaechi not to drag the All Progressives Congress (APC) into his personal agenda by recalling the ugly incident of the abandoned property.
Amaechi had, while leading the APC gubernatorial candidate in Rivers State, Tonye Cole, in a campaign, told an Igbo audience in the state that their properties that were declared ‘abandoned’ in 1970 after the civil war would be returned to them if they vote for Cole.
Onoh said that Amaechi has touched on one of the emotions of the Ndigbo, which they were almost getting through with, and asked him to refrain from such careless talks.
He accused Amaechi of desperation in politics, stressing that the leadership of the APC as a political party would not be a party to such vague promise.
Onoh wondered why Amaechi did nothing about the abandoned properties when he was governor of Rivers State for eight years, only for him to now turn around to claim saintly in a matter he knows he has no more powers to offer a solution to.
“On the 6th of November 2000, a fellow state legislator like us in the Imo State House of Assembly, Hon. Chief Noel Chukwukadibia, echoed the call that the issue is revisited, but Amaechi as the Speaker of Rivers State House of Assembly, personally responded and cautioned the Igbos against reopening the issue of the abandoned property, stating that the position of the people of Rivers State remained that the matter was closed; and today the same Amaechi is reopening it just for political gains,” Onoh recalled.
He, however, commended some Ikwerres who refused to lose their Igbo identity but remained steadfast and resilient in the acknowledgement of their origin, saying he thought Amaechi was one of such courageous Igbos but has proved otherwise.