In interview with us, David-West, a professor of virology, said the time President Jonathan was wasting chasing Amaechi would better be used serving Nigeria. “Jonathan, the time you are wasting to chase Amaechi, you should have used that time to serve Nigeria,” he said, adding that “if the president didn’t stop troubling Amaechi, it could lead to his own fall.”
His words: “Jonathan is Ijaw and we have a parable in Ijaw that says if you chase fowl too much, the fowl will run away but you the chaser will fall.”
David-West declared that whatever manipulation the Presidency made, it would not succeed in impeaching Amaechi. “Rotimi Amaechi can never be impeached, he said.
He added that the Presidency should follow the rule of law and stop meddling in the affairs of Rivers State. “Can you imagine President Barak Obama in America doing what Jonathan is doing to Rivers State Governor? It can never happen. Why is he hunting Amaechi…Amaechi is doing very well in Rivers State. I am very very upset about what is happening to him and I don’t like it,” he said.
On the ill-fated move by the Felix Obuah-led Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Rivers State to suspend 27 lawmakers of the State House of Assembly loyal to Amaechi, David-West said it is the height of impunity.
Hear him: “The new PDP executives in Rivers State said they have suspended 27 members of the Rivers State House of Assembly and declared their seats vacant. Do they have power to declare their seats vacant? People that were elected by the electorate! They don’t have the power to remove them from the House. They were elected by the people. They only happen to be PDP candidates. You cannot take away from them the mandate of the people.”
David-West also said he was not particularly surprised with the turn of event given the fact that the people’s votes didn’t count in the last presidential election.
“The President should follow the rule of law and procedure. I don’t believe that Nigeria is practicing democracy. You don’t have democracy when the people’s votes don’t count. In democracy, the people are supreme, sovereign! They elect their leaders. In Nigeria, it is not so,” he said.
In his reaction to the political intrigues playing out in Rivers State, Balarabe Musa warned: “The President should know that he is the President of Nigeria and what he does has implication for Nigeria.”
Musa added that it was unlike a President for Jonathan to engage in a quarrel with a sitting governor.
“It is not good for a President to be quarreling with a Governor. But President Jonathan had it with Sylva and it is believed that he engineered the failure of Sylva to contest in 2011. Now, he is alleged to be having similar plan for Amaechi whom we know has been his friend all along and he is alleged to want to give Amaechi the same treatment he gave Sylva. That is, either to get him impeached or stop him from contesting because it is alleged that Amaechi wants to contest in 2015 as President. It is not good for the President to be involved in this kind high-powered political intrigues particularly when it is coming from his home base, the South-South,” he said.
“He is alleged to be planning to contest in 2015 and he is eroding his chances in his home base – the South-South. Where else can he have this kind of mass support in Nigeria other than the South-South? He is actually undoing himself by this act.”
For Shehu Sani, Amaechi has proved himself to be a man of principle by standing up to the excesses of Jonathan. “President Jonathan sees Amaechi as an obstacle to his 2015 ambition. From all indication, he will not stop at anything in trying to humiliate and give Amaechi the Sylva treatment. Nigerians have to rally round Amaechi because, if Nigerians don’t do that, Jonathan will end up jailing Amaechi and I think it is in the best interest of democracy that Nigerians should support Amaechi,” Sani said.
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