BY JIMITOTA ONOYUME

PORT HARCOURT—ALLEGED plans by some ex-militants to embark on a violent protest in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, today, has been uncovered, the state government has claimed.
Meanwhile, the Movement for the Survival of Ogoni People, MOSOP, has appealed to Save Rivers Movement, to stay away from the area for the time being.

A top government functionary in the state, who gave hint of the alleged plan, said the ex-militants had concluded arrangement on how to literarily turn Port Harcourt, the state capital, upside down with the aim of creating room for the declaration of  a state  of emergency in the state.

The source, who pleaded anonymity, said the ex-militants had been effectively mobilised to create tension in the state under the guise of protesting against Governor Rotimi Amaechi, adding that the plan was to plunge Port  Harcourt into serious security crisis.

It will be recalled that a rally of the Save Rivers Movement, a pro- Amaechi group, could not hold on Sunday in Bori because of activities of political thugs, who fired gun shots to scare away people from the venue of the rally.
Meanwhile, a faction of Movement for the Survival of Ogoni People, MOSOP, has appealed to Save Rivers Movement, to stay away from the area for the time being.

President and spokesman of MOSOP, Mr Goodluck Diigbo, in a statement yesterday, said Ogoni people would not want their area to be another theatre of crisis and political clashes.
He said that it was decided at a meeting of a joint Peace and Security Council of the Central Indigenous Authority, OCIA and MOSOP   that the Save Rivers Movement should suspend its planned rally for the area until further notice.

“We, the people of Ogoni, are also at this time, trying to save our land, people and culture. We are not better placed to save Rivers State. Rivers State is one of Nigeria’s ill-thought political structure that had failed Ogoni. It has always been used as oppressive instrument to massacre and hang Ogoni leaders. Over time, Rivers State Government has greatly contributed to our economic exploitation, political marginalisation, impoverishment, victimisation and incarceration of thousands of innocent Ogoni youth, as well as the desecration of our ancestral heritage,” Diigbo said.