- President Muhammadu Buhari must allow Wike to run Rivers state smoothly says Senator Lee Meaba

- Senator Meaba says crisis in Rivers stems from the fact that APC wants to take power from Wike by force

Senator Lee Meaba represented Rivers South-East in the 6th Senate has urged the All Progressives Congress (APC) must desist from trying to take over Rivers state by force.

In his interview with The Vanguard, Meaba attributed the crisis in Rivers to political fanatism and an attempt by the APC – led Federal Government to take the state by manipulating the masses.

He also said that there will be grave consequences if President Muhammadu Buhari continues keeping quiet while a component of the country that produces about half of its resources is in turmoil.

Regarding what the way out of the violence taking place in Rivers is, Senator lee said: "the way out is for the President, who is the Commander-in-Chief, to call the security agencies to order.

All these things are happening because a former governor of the state, who is now an APC chieftain, wants to put a successor in Rivers and he couldn’t in 2015; so he is looking for every way to do it in 2016. In fact, they wanted a state of emergency in Rivers.

At what point does a President watch one very important component of a nation going into crisis? And this was a crisis caused by human desperation, crisis caused by political fanatism. Three elections have been held and they lost all, so what else are they looking for?

What else is the President waiting for to say ‘leave Rivers alone? So, what I am seeing is that when the governor of Rivers spends money to ensure that there is no pipeline vandalism in his state, when the man ensures that the national asset in Rivers is protected, what they pay him back with is to try to pull him down at all costs.

He is the Chief Security Officer of the state who does not know about the movement of security agents. Meanwhile, Amaechi knows about the movement of the police more than the sitting governor. I am very sure you know that about 70 percent of the police attached to the governor was withdrawn, what do you call that?

The CSO (Chief Security Officer) to the governor was withdrawn. The governor said they wanted to assassinate him. If you withdraw 70 percent of the police protecting the governor including his CSO of course it is right to say that you want to kill the governor. Or if you cannot kill the governor you create a sense of insecurity in him.

So, why is the press looking away from this, why is the President looking away from this? It will be so sad if the President sits down and watch Rivers degenerate into violence and disaster. Bonny terminal is the biggest oil terminal in the country. So, any government that means well for this country should try to protect Rivers state.

Call the APC gladiators and say, ‘Look, Rivers is a PDP state, let Rivers rest, next election you can come and participate and stop forcing Rivers people against their will.

The way forward is that they are placing Rivers State now on a keg of gun powder, if Rivers explodes, Nigeria will suffer economically because there will be no oil to sponsor anything in this country.