PDP Has Failed Us, Says Governor Fubara, Reveals Next Party
Rivers State Governor, Siminalayi Fubara, at the swearing in of the 23 new caretaker chairmen in Port Harcourt on June 19, 2024.
The Rivers State Governor, Siminalayi Fubara, has expressed his disappointment with the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), stating that the party had failed him and his supporters in the state.
Fubara, who was elected governor on the platform of the PDP a year ago, made this statement during a meeting with members of the Senate Committee on Privatisation, led by Senator Orji Kalu, at the government house in Port Harcourt on Wednesday.
Among the committee members was Senator Abba Moro, a former Minister of Interior, whom Governor Fubara acknowledged as a leader within his party, the PDP.
The governor amusingly told the Benue politician, that he would not adhere to party protocols, noting that the party had let the state down.
He said he and his supporters in Rivers State, were now operating as a movement to defend democracy, rather than functioning as members of a political party.
He also spoke on the political crisis in the state.
The governor’s stance came following the detonation of an explosive by a man in Port Harcourt on Tuesday.
Channels Television had reported how the yet-to-be-identified man, was to blow up the Presidential Hotel, a highly-rated hospitality facility in the state. He was later arrested by the police.
While speaking on the incident on Wednesday, Fubara said the failed attacker had targeted the facility that was accommodating high-profile individuals, including the members of the Senate committee, to justify the call for the imposition of a state of emergency in the state.
He said, “The idea was that as you heard the state of emergency, it will be so that by the time they finish when you return to have your sitting tomorrow (Thursday), the debate will be from somebody from this state who called you people to tell you not to come. He will now raise the issue of a state of emergency, and say, after all, distinguished colleagues saw it happen while you were in Rivers State, that you saw what happened.
“But you see, when you are with God, even your own child who is planning evil, will go and tell somebody that God is with this man because he is clean, this is what my father is planning. That is what is keeping us in this State”.
The Rivers State governor wondered why it seemed that the law was silent or inactive to take its course over offenders, because somebody appeared to be bigger than the law on the agitation, adding that there was nowhere in the country where tenure elongation for former local government chairmen had been an issue.
Fubara clarified that he was not fighting anybody rather, he was defending the state against predators, and protecting supporters of the interest of Rivers State against those who feel that they own the lives of others.