Governor Rotimi Amaechi has said that he is not afraid of impeachment, and other grand plots by the ruling party, the PDP, to scuttle his tenure of leadership.
The Governor spoke against his suspension and attempted impeachment at an inter-party summit with the theme “Cohesive inter-party relations as a panacea for peace and sustainable development in Rivers State” in Port Harcourt, the state capital.
He made the comments after reports emerged that a South-south governor loyal to the President had been given the mandate to recruit anti-Amaechi lawmakers from the Rivers State House of Assembly in order to impeach the governor.
Amaechi said: “Indeed, it is only the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) that has the guts to suspend a governor without a reason. I leave them to God and to you (the people)…. We must come together to defend Rivers State. It’s not about me; I have served eight years as Speaker, nearly six years as governor. Even if I am removed tomorrow, I am satisfied that this state, this country and history will recognise and remember me.”
“If there is no history that I have made, the one God has helped me to make is the one that I stood out and fought for my right and became a governor. You voted on my behalf and the Supreme Court confirmed that when you people were voting, you were voting for me. But you also need to make your own history and that history is that let Abuja know that you can stand for your right, whether you belong to PDP or APC or any other party.”
He said in 2015, the people of Rivers State must make sure their votes counted and that the ‘enemies of democracy’ must be intimidated by their votes.
He added, “If you listened to me yesterday (Monday) when I was addressing Rivers youths, I told them ‘all those from 18 and above should please get up’ and they got up. I asked them to sit down, they did and I asked again, ‘all those that have voter cards should please get up’ and a lot of them did and I said we shall punish irresponsible politicians with our cards. So what I expect from all of you whether you belong to APC, CPC, where ever you belong to, start now to mobilise the state for one man, one vote. We will not allow them intimidate us with police or anything. Instead, we shall intimidate them with our votes.”
“Any government formed without the people’s votes cannot be responsible to the people,” the governor said, adding: “The only way government or governors or presidents or whoever can stop corruption, can stop mal-administration is when that government is put in place by you (the people) and they know that if they don’t govern well, you (the people) will vote them out. So your first demand should be that all governments must be responsible enough to allow for a free and fair election.”