{"id":168008,"date":"2018-01-22T04:00:23","date_gmt":"2018-01-22T03:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/?p=168008"},"modified":"2018-01-22T03:56:36","modified_gmt":"2018-01-22T02:56:36","slug":"buhari-pressured-to-declare-state-of-emergency-in-rivers-wike-berates-fg-over-ogoni-clean-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/?p=168008","title":{"rendered":"Buhari Pressured To Declare State Of  Emergency In Rivers -Wike &#8230;Berates FG Over Ogoni Clean-Up"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Rivers State Governor, Chief Nyesom Wike has raised alarm that President Muhammadu Buhari is under intense pressure to declare a state of emergency in the state.<br \/>\nWike who disclosed this when the Anglican Bishops of Niger Delta Province paid him a visit Friday in the Government House Port Harcourt said he learnt of the plot at a meeting he had with the President in State House, Abuja recently.<br \/>\nWike said: When I went to see the President, he told me that he was under pressure to declare a state of emergency in Rivers State.<br \/>\n\u201cThose things they planned to use in declaring state of emergency in Rivers State fell on their own states and it became difficult to do so\u201d.<br \/>\nHe remarked that because of the mass insecurity, the evil eyes of the plotters have left the state.<br \/>\n\u201cWhen you sit and plot evil against Rivers State, you will not know peace. If they don\u2019t apologise for plotting and executing evil against Rivers State, they will never know peace\u201d, the governor said.<br \/>\nWike who noted that Rivers State survived because of the prayers of clerics and the Church, urged the church to take interest in the leadership that will emerge in the country at all levels, warning that bad political leadership will affect everyone.<br \/>\nHe said: If you don\u2019t participate in what is happening through voting, the country will degenerate further\u201d, and charged people to acquire their voters card to enthrone the leadership they desire.<br \/>\nThe governor said that in other climes, if ten persons are killed, the President visits to personally assess the situation and regretted that the country has become a security nightmare with 73 persons killed in Benue and mass burial organized for them while the President acts as if nothing happened.<br \/>\n\u201cHuman lives are not respected. In fact, the lives of cows and chicken appear to be more important than human lives. This has nothing to do with politics. Let us not trivialize the catestrophy that has befallen Nigeria\u201d, he said.<br \/>\nThe governor told the bishops that his administration plans to set up a Christian Trust Fund to cater for indigent clerics and added that funds have been proposed in the 2018 Budget for that purpose.<br \/>\nEarlier, the Anglican Archbishop of the Niger Delta Province, Most Rev. Ignatius Kettey said the bishops were in Government House to appreciate the Rivers State governor.<br \/>\nMeanwhile, Rivers State Governor, Chief Nyesom Wike says the Federal Government has not done enough to implement the Ogoni environment clean-up programme.<br \/>\nSpeaking on a phone-in programme organised by Silverbird Communications at the weekend in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State Governor asserted that so far, the UNEP programme has done nothing to earn the confidence of the people.<br \/>\nWike argued, that it was morally wrong for the Federal Government to plan fresh oil prospecting or issuing new licence to any oil firm to explore oil in Ogoniland when the Clean-Up programme has not been implemented.<br \/>\nWike averred that, \u201cI\u2019am not against oil prospecting in Ogoniland at least that will improve our revenue, but there are fundamental issues. We need to speak to Ogoni people and if that is not done, I\u2019am afraid to guarantee the safety of those who will come to prospect oil\u201d.<br \/>\nRather than approve new oil prospecting licence in the area, Chief Wike called on the Federal Government to implement the Ogoni environment clean-up in order to gain confidence of the people which will help guarantee safety of those who will be licensed to drill oil in the area.<br \/>\nThe Rivers State governor maintained that, \u201cwhat affects Ogoni affects the entire state, so when I see danger I will not fail to raise alarm\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Rivers State Governor, Chief Nyesom Wike has raised alarm that President Muhammadu Buhari is under intense pressure to declare a state of emergency in the state. Wike who disclosed this when the Anglican Bishops of Niger Delta Province paid him a visit Friday in the Government House Port Harcourt said he learnt of the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":168012,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[76,26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-168008","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-front-pix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168008","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=168008"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168008\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/168012"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=168008"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=168008"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=168008"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}