Big cover-up exists on the Rivers State crisis— HORSFALL

Chief Albert K. Horsfall, an elder statesman from Rivers State, ex director of the State Security Service (SSS) and former chairman of OMPADEC (Oil Mineral Producing Areas Development Commission) and presidential aspirant of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, in 2007 general elections in this encounter alleges a big cover-up on the people behind the crisis in Port Harcourt and Rivers State, saying the problems cannot be solved if the truth is not revealed.
He tries to give a clue to the problem, blaming the governor and his cousin, Rotimi Amaechi as the architects of the mayhem. He also spoke on a wide range of issues including the problem that could emanate from evicting the occupants of the waterfront, believed to be the hide-out of the cultists. Excerpts:
The Port Harcourt we know as a garden city has ceased to be so. What has really happened to Port Harcourt?
The Garden City would have still been so or more, but the civilian administration in Rivers State has eroded and derailed the status of Port Harcourt from being the garden city. In fact, the situation of Port Harcourt today can be blamed on the eight years of civilian administration in the state where unfortunately, there is a lot of false propaganda, mis-information, privatisation of government interests and public interests.
The combination of these states of affairs has reduced the garden city to a terrorists’ city but the right word is garbage city because if you go to Port Harcourt now, it’s garbage all over the state. That is what I think has been the problem.
The civilian governments have been very unfavourable in Rivers State, in Port Harcourt, such that what was going on for eight years was always being submerged and things were drastically going wrong. Nobody knew about them. Nobody could say anything about them. People felt intimidated. Those who know couldn’t come out to speak because there was always a frenzy to push on one side of events, that side that favoured government propaganda. That was what was going on for eight years.
Port Harcourt continued to degenerate to the stage now where militias and cult groups have taken over and reign supreme. The government and top politicians are funding and using these militia cult armies to terrorize the populace. This is what has happened in Port Harcourt.
There are different versions of the story of the mayhem in Port Harcourt. Some people are giving it ethnic colouration, describing it as an attempt to frustrate the first Ikwerre man to become governor and others are saying that between the governor and the former speaker, Rotimi Amacechi lies the truth. Is it so?It is true. Like I just told you, for eight years, a culture of cover-up of events in Rivers State was established such that it was always difficult to know what was happening in the state.
Everything coming from Port Harcourt was painted in rosy terms. Everything coming from Port Harcourt had a rose attached to it — a golden governor, rosy this, rosy that, development was number one and so forth. Anytime there was an attempt to tell the truth about the state of things in the state, government goes into a frenzy and sends out agents to put a contrary viewpoint and a proper view expressed by responsible citizens will never be heard but were subdued.
That has been the situation until the last general elections and the aftermath of it, which as we know saw two political gladiators, the former speaker of the state assembly, Rotimi Amaechi on one hand and the man who emerged as governor, Celestine Omehia on the other hand.
Between them is the truth. Ask them the cause because one is challenging the eligibility of the other. The matter was at the Court of Appeal which has given a decision which was still detested by the other party. As it is, the matter is at the Supreme Court but the Supreme Court is on recess. The whole of August is traditionally a period of recess for the courts. So, while this recess is on, it appears these gladiators have decided to go and fight it out on the streets of Port Harcourt and other parts of Rivers State.
Consequently, that was the case before the military intervened. The truth is that these political gladiators have sponsored rival militia armies in the state as they battle for the control of Port Harcourt and consequently Rivers State. That’s the immediate reason for this escalation, this armed conflict in Rivers State. As you know, nothing really provoked the situation.
Suddenly, one day, some people started shooting at nobody in particular. The next day, some other people started shooting back. The long and short of it is that they were being paid and sponsored by rival political leaderships. So, that is the cause of the crisis in Rivers State.
The belief now is that the Joint Task Force (JTF), has brought the matter under control. Would you say so or would you still insist on emergency rule?
It is totally inevitable and obvious that Amaechi and Omehia are fighting each other and promoting rival groups to stop the reign of peace in Port Harcourt and Rivers State. That being the case, both parties are part of the problem.
You would have heard, I have read it and have been told by different persons that the issue of cults and militias permeates every level of government in Rivers State. It was alleged in one of the papers that I read that starting from the most senior politician down to the local government chairmen in the state, most of them control some cult membership for their own protection or advancing their political cause. Now, if you allowed one cult member to be in charge, you are inviting the rival cult member to attack that person. And if the military douses that situation as it seems to be, it’s only a temporary palliative.
In a matter of time, the thing will flare up again. So, it is obvious that the proper solution is to get a neutral person to be an administrator in a state of emergency which is what is operating in Rivers State today whether we like it or not. There is curfew and people cannot move about freely.
All the tenets of an emergency situation is taking place except that there is no state of emergency and one of the parties to the dispute is in charge of affairs but that is not fair because under the present circumstances, you cannot achieve justice and you cannot settle the matter.
The other people, if they are temporarily subdued, after a while will come back again because their rival is there and they will want to fight it out again. So, it is obvious that we need a state of emergency with a neutral person. Some mistake a state of emergency that it has to be a soldier. The administrator doesn’t have to be a soldier.
As matter of fact, the very first state of emergency in Nigeria, the administrator of that state of emergency was a medical doctor, not a soldier or anything like that. The situation in Rivers State has become so complicated that we need a mature, responsible, experienced statesman from any part of this country that is adjudged a person of integrity to operate this state of emergency, sort out the situation and then allow the government to resume.
We have not sorted out the situation. Whether it is Omehia, whether it is anybody else, that is not our interest. I’m not opposed to Omehia. I’m not in favour of Amechi. It’s not about Omehia being an Ikwerre man. It’s not an ethnic thing. I’m not against an Ikwerre man. Not at all. Let me tell you this; the Ikwerres, the Kalabaris, the Ijaws and whoever it is in that state have lived together for centuries. The place called Rivers State was first made a province in 1947 by the British colonialists.
Even before that, our fathers, our ancestors have traded and intermarried with one another for many centuries before that. So, the Ikwerres have lived together with the Ijaws, the Kalabaris, the Igbanis for ages. It has nothing to do with ethnic politics. On my part, my father’s first daughter is an Ikwerre. Everybody in Port Harcourt knows that I don’t buy such things. As far as I’m concerned, the best person should be governor.
I’m not against an Ikwerre leader and I don’t think any responsible Rivers man is against an Ikwerre governor. So, it’s not an ethnic problem. The desperate politicians who want to manipulate the issues are trying to make it look as if it is an Ikwerre versus Ijaw or Kalabari affair. I think we have grown so close over the years and we can see through this deception and totally ignore their manipulation.
Now, let’s look at it from the family angle. Omehia has said times without number that Amaechi is his first cousin. Why haven’t the elders tried to reconcile them as brothers?
I don’t know, except that as an elder, if they come before me, I will reconcile them because I don’t want any problems in Rivers State. I don’t know if they have sought for elders advice somewhere else. They both come from Ubima and obviously are very closely related but it would surprise anyone that such close relatives have fought themselves to the Supreme Court on issues that elders could have settled.
I don’t know the type of first cousin relationship that they have which they don’t express.Governor Omehia has ordered that occupants of the Waterfront vacate the area by December because the cultists are hiding in those ramshackle (dwellings). Now, there is the fear that decent indigenes may be displaced in the process and that could compound the problem. What do you advise?
I don’t know. If I were to advise the governor, I would tell him not to make such a pronouncement without proper and careful planning. I have heard many stories about the waterfronts of Rivers State. One version said he would demolish the place and build new modern estates where people can go and live and the first people who would be allocated the new buildings would be those who lived there before.
I wish it is true. But I would say elders should advise this young man because it is a very sensitive issue. You don’t touch it without proper planning. You have to introduce an architectural design to convince people that you are serious.
You want to be able to allocate before hand, based on the architectural design the plots to their original inhabitants. You want to identify those who are the real inhabitants of the place. Many of these people don’t have title documents. It’s their ancestral homes. You have to identify them, make a proper census and convince them that when the new structures are set up, it’s going to be allocated to them. You have to get the contractors approved. They themselves should be a member of the committee that would make this arrangement.
Don’t sideline them. You should not just come and say, we are giving you this, no. Bring them in if you are sincere. You have to then give a proper time-table for this construction to take place. And again, you have to provide the funds and put them in an account to say that, contractor A and B, when you start your work, your money is here, we will pay you, so somewhere along the line you won’t stop it or say there is no estimate for it. But if you want to merely beautify the waterfront for tourist attraction, then you have to find places inside Port Harcourt to relocate these people you are going to remove from those areas because these people were the original indigenes of Port Harcourt town but were driven away during urbanization of Port Harcourt. If you don’t do that, as I say, if I’m an elder advising Omehia, I will say, ol’ boy be careful here. It’s a very sensitive issue.
Is anything being done about the source of the sophisticated weapons used by the cultists?
I don’t know. But as you know, all the key combatants — Asari Dokubo, Ateke Tom, Soboma George have all openly confessed how they came about their weapons, who funded them, who started the militia and the cult projects. So, they know best.
So the elders are calling for emergency rule. Is there no other way for peace to return to Port Harcourt?
Emergency rule per se will not bring peace. Emergency rule is called for because in the complicated, tangled up situation in Rivers State, you need a neutral person to go and dismantle the situation because those persons, that is, the three people I told you about. Asari Dokubo, Ateke Tom, Soboma George have said who armed them and started them on a political thuggery mission and these are still walking the streets of Port Harcourt and Abuja. They are still there.
So, if they are there and they put these things together, nobody has asked them: “Oga, these people have said you funded them, come and let us see how we can put off this thing, maybe you have the key. The poor people of Rivers State are suffering everyday over these issues. What about those who set this state of affairs in motion? Let them be asked to contribute to how to dismantle this thing. They probably have the key. That is the starting point.
Do you foresee a situation where peace returns permanently to Port Harcourt in the nearest future?
I will wish for that. I pray for that everyday. I kneel down and I pray for Port Harcourt. If there is a place that should be called a land of milk and honey, Rivers State is land of milk and honey. So, I pray for peace to return there. I pray that the garbage be removed from Port Harcourt and the garden be returned there.
If you go to Port Harcourt and see how the place is now, you will agree that it will take a very sincere and really Rivers man, and when I say Rivers man, Ikwerre is Rivers, Ogoni is Rivers, Kalabari is Rivers, Okrika is Rivers, it will take a solid, sincere Rivers man to get the wheels of progress back to Port Harcourt if we really expect to see it as a garden city ever again, a waterfront city. But the people have lost confidence in governments’ pronouncements and promises.
There was a place called Rainbow Town. When it was being destroyed by the last administration, they said they were going to rebuild it and re-allocate it to the original inhabitants of the place. It was a peaceful place but up till today, at least about five years after it was destroyed, nothing was heard about it.
The last thing we heard about the place after all the propaganda was that it was now being shared among top brass of the state. The same thing might happen to the waterfront. In fact, the waterfront is the most suitable place for the big people to live in. So, we hope that these promises will not be empty promises like the previous ones.
So, the waterfronts are occupied by local people, the indigenes?I believe so. There are many people from different backgrounds living there and they have been there for years. Apparently, their fore-fathers who were fishermen and traders lived there. So, that’s why I said it is a very sensitive issue. Don’t just point hands somewhere and make pronouncements without a thorough plan.
How does one ascertain that those calling for emergency rule are doing so out of love for the state and not for political reasons especially with allegations that some of those doing so are non-indigenes?
I don’t know those you are referring to as non-indigenes. But this issue is a topical one. It’s a national issue. What is happening in Port Harcourt touches everyone. And the comments have come from all over the Niger Delta, both for and against a state of emergency. Different people have talked. For instance, for state of emergency, E.K Clark of Delta State is an Ijaw elder; John Oyegun, Edo State has spoken. So, it touches everybody.
Itse Sagay has spoken. He’s from Delta State. Now, many of these people who have made contrary comments probably do not have the full information of what has taken place. Like I’m telling you know, I’m sure they don’t know many of these things. If they do, they will know that only a neutral person can unfold and sort out the very complicated situation in Rivers State.
I tell you, it’s the same pattern, the same style. The whole of Rivers State has become one main grave yard of cults. I understand there is somebody at the head of the cults .They call him the Capone and once the Capone speaks, it’s final. Nobody says anything again. If he says go and kill, the order is carried out to the letter or whatever he decides.
So, what is happening in Rivers State now, even those who know the truth are too frightened to say so because they are going to be dealt with; either by being physically manhandled, beaten, destroyed or put into economic misery or deprivation. And so, they will just keep quiet, even though they don’t believe it, even though their opinions will help government make good decisions.
For instance, I’m telling you about the Waterfronts. If I’m the one advising Omehia, I will tell him to keep it cool because it’s a very delicate thing; don’t make pronouncements like that, you will inflame the situation. And for those trying to make it an ethnic affair, I will tell them no, you are wasting time, these people have lived together for centuries.
I was reading a literature about somebody from Harry Marshal’s town in Kalabari land. He was one of the prosperous kings in 17th and 18th century and his mother was from Ikwerre land, as far back as that time. So, these people have interacted and lived together for centuries. Anybody trying to make ethnicity out of it is only trying to be mischievous.
So, the truth of the crisis is yet unknown?
Nobody knows the truth. They don’t want people to know the truth because when the truth is known, then people will react properly and appropriately. I’m speaking just as an elder of the place. I’m not in support of, or against anybody. I want the truth to be known so that the Federal Government will know how to begin to sort out that place for the benefit of all concerned.