By Jimitota Onoyume

PORT HARCOURT— Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, has called on the Minister of Transportation, Mr Chibuike Amaechi and the Director-General, Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency, NIMASA, Dr Dakuku Peterside, to use their offices to attract development to Rivers State.

But in a swift reaction, All Progressives Congress, APC, in the state, said unlike the PDP, Amaechi and Peterside were already delivering on their mandates, saying, “For Rivers PDP, the dividend of democracy is looting and sharing the commonwealth of the people amongst PDP cabal.”

Rivers State PDP, through its Chairman, Mr. Felix Obuah, in a statement, yesterday, claimed that since Amaechi and Peterside assumed offices at the national level they had not attracted any meaningful development to the state, alleging that they had only been involved in trying to create crisis in the state.

Amaechi

According to the statement through Obuah’s Media Aide, Jerry Needam: “Since their appointments, Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi and Director-General of NIMASA, Dakuku Peterside, who are from the state, have also not been able to initiate any project or empowerment scheme in the state. Rather than serve as a blessing to the people of Rivers State the appointment of the APC leaders from the state had become source of woes and anguish, as they have only used such positions to cause crisis and division, doing everything to blackmail the government in the state in their quest to force themselves on the people undemocratically. Stop the noise and desist from causing problems in Rivers State, deliver meaningful projects and empowerment schemes to the people.

“Regrettably, Rivers State today is one of the few states that has not been accorded its right place by the APC government as a result of continued and deliberate denial and suppressive actions by even those who have benefitted a lot from the state’s treasures. It is on the strength of this that we charge the duo of Amaechi and Peterside to have a rethink, by stopping the fight of attrition against the government and people of the state and join hands to develop it and to influence federal projects into the state as their lawful responsibility.”

But the state APC in a statement, through its spokesman, Chris Finebone, said:  “On the other hand, it appears beyond the comprehension of PDP that appointees in President Muhammadu Buhari’s  government are committed people serving selflessly, diligently and incorruptibly. They are there to serve Nigerians and when they serve Nigerians well, Rivers people will get their fair share of democratic dividend. Very importantly, Felix Obuah and the PDP must understand that Rivers State has produced a Minister of Transport in the past who is a top member of the PDP. He was indicted and shamefully booted out by former President Olusegun Obasanjo for corruption.

“However, under Mr. Amaechi, the quantum leap in the modernisation of the railway transportation system in Nigeria is unprecedented and its benefits to all Nigerians including Rivers people will be monumental. The jobs the Trans Niger Delta Railway will create and the effects its operation will have for the Niger Delta will shame the PDP and their former leader who was President for six years.  “Dr. Peterside is aware that all previous heads of NIMASA ended up either in prison or being charged to court on corruption charges. So, he is committed to doing his job as the DG, NIMASA so that when he leaves, he will be doing so without blemish or tar. Well-meaning Rivers people know that the appointments of Amaechi and Peterside will bring them the right kind of benefits and not the type of benefits PDP appointees in the past brought to their members in the State.”