Senator Magnus Abe was the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) for the Rivers Southeast District in the inconclusive March 19 rerun. In this interview with BISI OLANIYI in Port Harcourt, the River State capital, he says the Buhari administration should put an end to the politically-motivated killings and the intimidation of APC members in the South-South state.
What is your assessment of the political situation in Rivers State?
It is really quite unfortunate that in 2016 Nigeria, we will be discussing these issues. The unprecedented level of violence that we witnessed in the 2015 elections has not abated. In fact, the 2016 rerun elections in Rivers State were actually worse than the 2015 elections.
Even, after the elections, the threats to members of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the state is still high. Indeed, in many communities in my senatorial district (comprising the four Ogoni LGAs Khana, Gokana, Tai and Eleme, as well as Andoni, Opobo/Nkoro and Oyigbo councils), which is the district where the elections were postponed, a lot of our party members perpetually run out of their communities, because a lot of them are being attacked and killed.
In fact, the very one that has shivers down my spine is the case of one young man, who used to be in the opposition and just recently joined the APC. He was with me last night, telling me that he was in danger and that I am in danger. Just this afternoon, we got information that he was assassinated at a burial.
People went to a burial where everybody was gathered. the assassins came down in cars, opened fire on him in front of thousands of people and killed him in cold blood. I am still in shock. We keep saying to people that we are in danger; something should be done. It is this same group of people that have been attacking and killing people in the area over the past three, four years.
It was the same gang that attacked members of the APC when they were going to attend the President Muhammadu Buhari’s inaugural rally in Port Harcourt and the President visited them in the hospital. They are still killing people up till now. It was the same gang that attacked the APC rally at Bori in Khana LGA three times, publicly opened fire on people.
It was a similar gang operating in another area that attacked the APC rally in Okrika. The funny thing is that, in all these things that are happening, there is no investigation going on. Nobody is being arrested, prosecuted or detained.
The re-run are inconclusive. What is the way forward?
I do not think that that statement by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) is in consonance with the sovereignty of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. We have laws in this country and what makes a country sovereign is the fact that your laws are effective within your own borders.
The Nigerian law does not anticipate a situation where the INEC has to take permission from any group of criminals before it can conduct elections. That is not the law. The law is that the INEC is to set a date for elections and the Nigerian state is to make the place conducive for elections. That is the law.
So, if the place is not conducive and people do not come to agree with the INEC up till 2019, does it mean that the elections will not hold? What if the same situation is replicated across the country, are we going to now cancel elections in this country? The same lack of security that is making it impossible for us to hold elections is making it impossible for ordinary Nigerians to go about their normal business.
How will you describe the roles of security agencies in the March 19 rerun in Rivers State?
You cannot hold the security agencies directly responsible for what is happening in Rivers State. The governor (Nyesom Wike) is the chief security officer of the state. The Federal Government has effective command on the security agencies. Somebody has to give an order to the security agents to fish out the hoodlums and put a stop to these killings.
Somebody has to fund the order, when it is given. Somebody has to work with the security agencies to implement the order. As it is today, the security agencies are tired. If somebody is arrested now, before evening, people will call you from the highest levels of state government to release the person. They will ask, why are you arresting him?
If you dare charge the person to court and it goes to the Director of Public Prosecution (DPP), advice will be written. I mean there are all sorts of shenanigans that the government can use to make sure that people they want to protect are protected. The message is getting to the criminals that as long as they are in power, nothing will happen. That is what is emboldening them.
If you post policemen or soldiers, you deploy them to a place. Somebody is supposed to feed them, fund their presence there and provide water. They are human beings. People are supposed to support them. Where they do not get the support, who is going to be responsible for the kind of effectiveness that you expect from the security agencies?
There are just two ways of dealing with this thing. The Rivers state government is supposed to take the lead in putting a stop to the criminality, but let me give you an example. You heard what happened in Gokana LGA of Rivers state, when the SSG Kenneth Kobani, an indigene of Bodo-Ogoni in Gokana LGA), was arrested. He (SSG) is the Chairman of the Arrest Resistance Committee set up by the Rivers State government and at the place where he was arrested, members of the committee opened fire on the soldiers and bombed the INEC office in Gokana LGA.
The police could not free the youth corps members who were held hostage there. So, the matter in Rivers State is serious beyond words and if the state government is going to put political expediency above the life of Nigerian citizens, then, the Federal Government has the responsibility to step in, provide the leadership and resources necessary to bring this sad episode to an end. You cannot just blame security agencies. How are they going to achieve that?
The APC’s government at the centre alive to its responsibility of protecting lives and property of Rivers residents?
Today, there are communities in Ogoni that have publicly banned the holding of APC meetings, with the support of militants in the communities, asking people who are members of APC to leave the communities. We have reported it to the security agencies. No action has been taken. So, what is the APC to do? This matter is strictly between the Federal and state governments. They are the ones that have the powers of cohesion, resources and constitutional responsibility to deal with this issue.
If the Federal Government, because President Muhammadu Buhari does not want to intervene in the work of Rivers State, has kept quiet to give the state an opportunity to deal with this issue, should not be taken for granted. The security challenge in Rivers State is clearly not being dealt with by the state government. So, it is now up to the Federal Government to step in and take responsibility.
Somebody must be responsible for what is happening in Rivers state. It cannot be that it is nobody’s business. Neither can it be the business of the APC or the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). This is the business of Nigeria and there are authorities responsible for what happens in Nigeria.
Why are some of your people working against you, to ensure you do not return to the Senate?
What I see going on is politics gone too far. Everybody knows that, if there is an election in Rivers Southeast Senatorial District and the people are allowed to choose their representative, I will be chosen. Everybody knows that across the state. It is not a hidden matter. but, everything is being done to stop the people to have the right of free choice.
The Rivers governor had gone to say, stop Senator Abe by all means and from that time till today, there has been no peace. Everything is being done to stop the people of the area from having the opportunity to elect a representative of their choice. Everything is being done to cow the electorate. Everything is being done to stop people from coming out to vote.
I have said it time without number that I am not asking for any favour. All I want is to create an atmosphere where people can vote and the votes can be counted. If that happens, win or lose, I stand by what the people decide, but there are people who are going out of their way to make sure that, that does not happen. That is the cause of everything that you are seeing here.
Is the crisis in confounding to you?
There is nothing out of the ordinary that is going on in Rivers State other than the fact that you have an administration that has refused to put the security of lives and property against its own political interest. You have a situation where the laws of the Federal Republic of Nigeria are suspended in Rivers State. You have a situation where all the rights guaranteed by the Nigerian constitution to Nigerians are being denied members of the APC in Rivers state, including the right to life.
