‘I don’t recognise you as legitimate’ -Gov Fubara tells Rivers Lawmakers

By Peters Monday, Abuja

Governor, Mr Siminalayi Fubara has told the defected Rivers State lawmakers that he didn’t recognise them as legitimate.

According to him, he merely accepted the peace accord brokered by the presidency on the condition of finding a political solution to the crisis in the State following the infighting between him and his godfather, Nyesom Wike.

Fabura, who expressed disappointment regret that despite his sacrifices by endorsing the peace accord, the Wike group particularly in the State House of Assembly have rebuffed the accord and continued to make Rivers State ungovernable for him.

He spoke Monday when he received a courtesy visit, a Bayelsa State delegation of Political and Traditional Leaders, led by former governor of the state, Senator Henry Seriake Dickson at Government House, Port Harcourt.

He said, “Let me say it here, those groups of men who claim that they are Assembly members, they do not existl. I want it to be on record.

“I accepted that peace accord to give them a soft-landing. That’s the truth. There is nothing in that peace accord that is a constitutional issue. It is a political solution to a problem. I accepted it because these are people that were visiting me and we were together in my house.

“These are people that I have helped… in many ways when I wasn’t even a governor. Yes, we might have our disagreements, but I believe that one day, we could also come together. That was the reason I did it.

“But I think it has gotten to a time when I need to make a statement on this thing, so that they understand that they are not existing. Their existence and whatever they have been doing is because I allowed them to do so. If I don’t recognise them, they are nowhere, that is the truth”.

While claiming that he had acted like the big brother in the crisis so as not to hinder meaningful developments, the Wike side was acting in an irresponsible manner, hitting up the polity instead of following the path of peace.

“I have always taken the path of peace. I have shown respect. I have subjected myself to every meeting of reconciliation for peace. And what happens, each time we come out from such meetings, we are faced with one thunder or lightning.

“But it is a bad thing when the problem that ought not to be anything becomes something, and in fact, gets out of the bedroom to the sitting room and to the compound. That is the case of Rivers State today.

“I am also happy that you even mentioned the issues, even when I have all the instruments of state power. I have shown restraint, and I believe that whoever is alive and have been following the activities of our dear state, knows that I have acted as a big brother in the course of this crisis.

“And because our intention for Rivers State is to build on the foundation that had been laid by our past leaders, it will be wrong for me to take the path of promoting crisis. That is why we are still recording the development that you are hearing around Rivers State”, he maintained.