First Lady Patience Jonathan Makes Volte-Face, Calls For Peace In Rivers…Slams Soyinka, Others

Nigeria’s first lady, Patience Jonathan today made a sudden change of posture on the crisis rocking her home state, Rivers where only five out of the 32 members of the state House of Assembly obviously backed by the presidency in Abuja have been making moves including violence to impeach their speaker with a view to remove the state governor, Rotimi Amaechi.

Nobel laureate, Prof Wole Soyinka and a number of well meaning Nigerians and groups have blamed President Goodluck Jonathan and his wife, Dame Patience as the masterminds of the crisis in the state. That Mrs Jonathan reacted to in her statement signed by her media aide, Ayo Osinlu today when she slammed those criticising her.

Full text of her statement reads: “This office wishes to call on all feuding parties in Rivers State to spare a thought for the social, political and economic costs of the crisis, and consider an urgent way to resolve all political differences.

“It is our position that the greater consequences of the impasse is, as usual, reserved for the poor, the weak and the vulnerable, especially women and children, who are usually innocent bystanders in all these. This derives naturally from the saying that when two elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers.

“On a larger scale, we subscribe to the fact that conflicts and violence are the most lethal threats to peace, which itself is the irreducible minimum condition for development.

“The situation must therefore not be allowed to degenerate to a level that can be hijacked by miscreants and hoodlums, thus exposing everyone to insecurity from which there may be no easy escape.

“We therefore call on elders of the state to position themselves appropriately in the circumstances, and continue to seek the highest good of Rivers state and its people, by stone-walling the activities of the few who would rather fan little embers into a consuming inferno.

“Recent experience whereby certain otherwise respected elders of the country, both from within and outside Rivers State, were canvassing views that seemed to intensify the heat in Rivers State, is certainly unfortunate.

“We also recall recent pictures of some youths on the streets of Port Harcourt, obviously in an angry mood, a worrisome suggestion that the crisis is already threatening to spill to the streets, a dimension we cannot afford to allow to escalate for obvious reasons.

“We must stress that the people of the state desire and look forward to an end to the hostilities, to pave way for higher economic activities and nobler political engagements that will guarantee an enhancement of their welfare.

“It is therefore incumbent on all people of goodwill to seek to restore peace, brotherliness and love in Rivers State, for the state to press forward in the direction of growth and progress.”