Ahead of the next month’s party primaries, the former Governor of Rivers State, Dr. (Sir) Peter Odili has nursed political ambition to represent the people of the Rivers West Senatorial District in the Upper House of the National Assembly come 2015.
The ex-governor has began serious consultations within the political circle. He has met with politicians from some ethnic groups that made up the Rivers West Senatorial District.
Despite his wider political consultations, several power brokers within the district have vowed not to give their support to him.
According to them, Dr. Odili’s tenure as a governor in River State was characterized by violence, cultism, ethnic clashes amongst other social vices.
Some politicians and party chiefs, who spoke with our correspondent, however noted that Odili’s eight (8) years tenure did not attract much development into the communities within the Rivers West Senatorial District. They said that the people of the Rivers West Senatorial District cannot give such a politician their mandate to speak for them in the National Assembly. They advised him to forget his ambition, adding that, there is no way they would give them their mandate to serve.
A prominent politician in the Rivers West Senatorial District, Chief Ibigo Emmanuel said that nobody is ready to stand behind the former governor in order to actualize his ambition to become a Senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
According to Chief Emmanuel, “It takes time for a wound to heal. Though time flies, but we shall not forget in hurry what happened in the state when Dr. Sir. Peter Odili was a Governor of Rivers State”.
He alleged that so many communities across the state were deserted due to unprecedented violence and ethnic cleansing. Chief Emmanuel further alleged that communities such as Abua, Ke Tombia, Bukuma, Ogbakiri, Okrika, Abuloma and several others were destroyed when Dr. Odili was piloting the affairs of the state. According to him, cultism was at its peak, when Odili was at the helms of affairs in the state.
He said that giving a mandate to Odili to represent the Rivers-West Senatorial District is like rubbing salt into the wound, warning that if the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP fails to adhere to the voices of the masses, and impose the ex-governor on them; the party will not succeed in Rivers-West Senatorial District in 2015 general election.
Meanwhile information reaching our political desk had it that ex-Governor Peter Odili has summoned a meeting of some prominent Kalabari politicians in Abuja, the capital city of Nigeria, where he pleaded with them to support his senatorial ambition. Dr. Odili as reliable sources hinted this weekly begged the people of Kalabari for forgiveness. He called for reconciliation, pleading that anybody he has offended one way or the other should forget and forgive, so that they will all tread the path of newness.
It would be recalled that several Kalabari communities were destroyed and deserted during Dr. Petet Odili’s administration.
A frontline member of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the Degema Local Government, Hon. Onengiye-Ofori Abbey declared that Odili will be very difficult to forgive considering dangerous events across the length and the breadth of the riverine communities, when he was in the Brick House. However, Hon. Abbey appealed to the ruling PDP not to field Dr. Odili to avoid disgrace during the senatorial election. ###
