13/01/2023
TEXT OF A PRESS CONFERENCE ON FRIDAY, JANUARY 13, 2023 BY THE RIVERS APC 2023 CAMPAIGN COUNCIL ON THE RESUMPTION OF THE CRIMINAL TRIAL OF HIS EXCELLENCY, THE RT. HON. CHUBUIKE ROTIMI AMAECHI, CON, AND ARC. TONYE COLE, Mni BY THE GOVERNMENT OF RIVERS STATE OVER SALE OF STATE ASSETS
Gentlemen of the Press, I warmly welcome you to our maiden press briefing for the Year 2023. Happy New Year!!
1. The Rivers APC 2023 Campaign Council is constrained to react to the filing of fresh criminal charges at the High Court of Rivers State by the Government of Rivers State against our leader; a former Governor of Rivers State and immediate past Minister for Transportation, His Excellency, The Rt. Hon. Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi, and our 2023 governorship candidate, Arc. Tonye Cole, Mni.
2. Before yesterday, media reports quoting the Honourable Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice, Prof. Zacchaeus Adangor (SAN), were awash indicating that the State Government is back in Court with the same criminal charges against Amaechi and Cole for the alleged sale of State assets and withdrawal of N96 billion from the State's treasury that were withdrawn last year in the case of State v. Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi & 6 Ors in PHC/1818CR/2022 before Justice Okogbule Gbassam of the High Court of Rivers State.
3. With the collapse of the multiple cases contrived to disqualify and stop Arc. Tonye Cole, Mni, and the rest of our candidates for the 2023 general elections, we understand the frustration of Governor Nyesom Wike who is desperate to impose his surrogate as Governor to succeed him. However, this ill-fated quest to persecute Tonye Cole would end like the bankrolling of one Livingstone Wechie to run riot in the media and before the Senate with the same unsubstantiated fraud and corruption allegations calculated at stopping the appointment of Chubuike Rotimi Amaechi as a Minister in the Government of the Federation under President Muhammadu Buhari in 2015.
4. These orchestrated trials of political opponents by a Governor who rode to power in 2015 on a blood feast that cost several Rivers APC members their lives but has never deemed it fit under two Attorneys-General to institute a single probe to investigate the circumstances behind those widely reported politically motivated killings, even when same was acknowledged by the Supreme Court that upheld his election and the killers are known in most cases, reminds us of Macbeth's categorization of life itself in Act V Scene 5 of William Shakespeare's Macbeth after he received news of the death of his wife, Lady Macbeth. Macbeth said: "Life's but a walking shadow... It is a tale told by an idiot; full of sound and fury, signifying nothing". This resumed trial is full of political sound and fury, signifying nothing. It is only calculated to play on the intelligence of Rivers people and the general public and cause further distractions to Tonye Cole, the APC, and Rivers voters.
5. Please note that we are in no doubt that the Honourable Attorney-General is empowered by the Nigerian Constitution to exercise his powers of _nolle_ _prosequi_ on criminal prosecution as he thinks fit. However, the exercise of such powers by an Attorney-General must not be at the beck and call of anyone. In this instance, the Attorney-General is exercising his _nolle_ powers under Section 211 of the 1999 Constitution for Governor Wike who is pursuing a personal, vindictive Agenda against Amaechi and his political interests. This is not within the contemplation of the Constitution, particularly in Section 211(3), and must stop forthwith.
6. To be very certain, nothing changed between the time the initial charges brought before Justice Gbassam were withdrawn by the Attorney-General of Rivers State and the resumption of the trial yesterday. The resort to sensationalism and media trial by the State Government through planting stories to advertise the resumption of the trial of Chubuike Rotimi Amaechi and Tonye Cole on every Radio and TV Station or newspaper is unnecessary. At best it is a poor propaganda script that puts the Judiciary, a separate arm of the State Government, in a very bad light as a vehicle available for political games and mischief. When we say that nothing has changed from the date the State Government withdrew the case in PHC/1818CR/2022 before Justice Gbassam to yesterday, we mean that the Rivers State Government did not lodge a complaint with the Nigeria Police on the crimes alleged. Neither did the Police invite Amaechi and Cole for questioning on the allegations leveled against them nor did any Police officer carry out investigations of the alleged crime.
7. Gentlemen of the Press, we have a duty therefore to sound it abundantly clear to Rivers people and followers of events in our State that the sensationalism of a resumption of the so-called trial is deliberately created by Wike's PDP to cast doubts on the candidature of Tonye Cole and thereby disrupt the massive support the governorship candidate of the APC enjoys from the Rivers electorate ahead of the March 11, 2023 governorship elections. These vile politics embedded in propaganda is a plot to discourage Rivers people from voting for our candidate because he would be convicted and sent to jail before the May 29, 2023 date of inauguration of the next Governor of Rivers State.
8. Having stated that nothing changed in this case from the time Wike's Attorney-General withdrew the charges to avoid the calamitous fate of filing criminal charges against Amaechi and Cole, it is clear that the mission of this Government is not to serve the cause of justice. Nothing warrants the delusion by this embarrassingly desperate regime that it can create a scenario to discourage Rivers voters from "wasting" their votes on Tonye Cole when it did nothing required by law to activate or ground a proper and sustainable prosecution of the charges against the persons accused. Our law is well settled that the prosecution of an accused person cannot proceed without evidence of Police investigation of a complaint made to it before the Court.
9. For the avoidance of doubt, it is also settled law that mere allegations are no legal evidence. Thus, a rehash of the same story a million times that His Excellency, The Rt. Hon. Chubuike Rotimi Amaechi withdrew the sum of N96 billion from the State treasury to fund the election of President Muhammadu Buhari in 2015 without providing _prima_ _facie_ evidence to prove same is tantamount to criminal libel, political vilification, and blackmail. By the same token, the other plank of Wike's allegations on the sale of the State's power assets and Hotel Olympia to Tonye Cole's Sahara Energy Group without proof of fraud is defamation of the character of our governorship candidate.
10. Our position on these allegations is very straightforward. Chubuike Rotimi Amaechi and Tonye Cole are innocent of the baseless allegations and we challenge Nyesom Wike to publish details of the accounts held by the Rivers State Government in various Banks before Amaechi's departure from office on May 29, 2015, to highlight the alleged withdrawal. We further challenge him to publish the transactions between the State Government under Amaechi and Sahara Energy to allow Rivers people and the general public to make their informed judgments on these allegations. Seeking the destruction of the character and reputation of both illustrious sons of Rivers State in the court of public opinion for cheap political gains is never the call of a responsible government and remains unacceptable to us.
11. The other choice before Wike who is now well-known for rabble-rousing and absurd underhand tactics in politics is very clear. He either pulls back from his malicious persecution of political opponents or continues playing the Ostrich. In the latter case, Wike should be prepared to face legal action for his defamatory outbursts on the persons of Chubuike Rotimi Amaechi and Tonye Cole after the constitutional immunity he enjoys expires upon leaving office on May 29, 2023.
12. The Honourable Attorney-General of Rivers State is in a pole position to advise Wike that with no investigation of his allegations by the Nigeria Police, what they are embarking on is an expensive joke. This resumed trial, like its predecessor, has no place in our criminal jurisprudence. Indeed, nothing necessitates the institution of these fresh charges by the Attorney-General who appears to have forgotten that in exercising his power of _nolle_, the Constitution provides that he must "have regard to the public interest, the interest of justice and the need to prevent abuse of legal process". However, should Wike's government proceed with the charade because it derives pleasure in massaging his broken ego, this impulsive, brazen impunity at the expense of taxpayer's money in the guise of prosecution is bound to come to ruin?
13. Consequently, we advise Wike to deploy the funds he would waste on this journey to nowhere in managing the consequences of his misplaced priorities and profligacy. There is the State Secretariat Complex in desolate conditions to fix to make the work environment comfortable for our civil servants. There are arrears of pensions and gratuity that Wike has failed to pay Rivers pensioners to clear. If Wike's conscience cannot prick him to realize that it is callous to allow our senior citizens wallow and die in abject poverty waiting for the fruits of their hard-earned labor to the State while embarking on a reckless spree of donations of our State's money to elsewhere, let him know this day that the harsh judgment of history awaits him for every woman who dies in Rivers State from excruciating pain and delivery complications because the husband cannot afford surgery costs even at State-owned Hospitals. Let Wike know that the verdict of guilt is pronounced on him already for every Rivers child that sits on bare floors in classrooms without desks; or is unable to go to earn a University degree because their parents cannot afford their education while he was in power.
14. Since Wike alone is not complicit in this tragic application of political power, we have a message for the Chief Law Officer of the State. An Attorney-General worth his salt would waste no effort, time, and State resources on the prosecution of alleged crimes to gain political traction for his Principal. Especially where the same is completely outside the purview of the laws and laid down procedures for criminal trials and cannot be substantiated howsoever as is the case with the matter at hand!!
15. The abuse of institutions of the State to blackmail, harass, cajole, intimidate and silence political opponents has never worked for dictators and repressive regimes throughout human history. Therefore, Wike's case cannot and shall never be an exception.
16. This government of the People's Democratic Party is manifestly rattled by the collapse of the several civil cases it contrived to disqualify our governorship candidate and stop the APC from standing in the way of imposing Wike's surrogate as Governor in Rivers State. We sympathize with them over their self-inflicted frustrations. However, it is preposterous to contrive the prosecution of a citizen for a crime allegedly committed by a limited liability company under Nigerian law without first lifting the veil on its ownership or Directors. No one looking for ways and means to distract an innocent citizen whose crime is to step forward to offer his people accountable political leadership and revolutionary economic development where Wike has failed already can hide beneath the Constitution.
17. We advise Wike and his failed government operatives to concentrate on winding down his activities in the four months left instead of embarking on another wild goose chase of Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi, Tonye Cole, and the Sahara Energy Group.
18. As a Campaign Council, we are satisfied that our governorship candidate and the party remain committed to the job of pulling Rivers State back from the brink where Wike has driven her to. That is the job we have to do and need no further distractions. Enough is enough of Wike and his PDP distractions.
19. We urge our supporters across the State and party faithful to remain calm and resolute in their support for Tonye Cole and all APC candidates as we drive the mission of liberation of our dear Rivers State to fruition. That is the task Rivers people must keep faith with as we further assure that nothing would emerge from the propaganda and dirty strategies of a confused government that delights in putting the people it was elected to serve through pains.
20. By the grace of God and the abiding faith of our members and supporters, we overcame all the previous hurdles strewn on our path in this historic journey. We shall overcome this one too and brace the tape of victory at the polls come March 11, 2023, with the active support of the majority of Rivers voters.
God bless Rivers State and I thank you for your time and patience.
Sogbeye C. Eli
Spokesman, Rivers APC 2023 Campaign Council
January 13, 2023.
