Rivers State Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice, Prof. Zacchaeus Adangor, SAN, has asked the former Minister of Transportation, Chibuike Amaechi, not to play politics with abandoned property in the state.

Adangor said attempts to play politics with ‘abandoned property that is considered legally closed and cannot be revisited is distasteful.” The Attorney General stated this shortly after the State Executive Council meeting presided over, yesterday, by Governor Nyesom Wike in Government House, Port Harcourt. He said it was unconscionable for the former minister to instigate hostility between Igbo and other people of the state.

Recall that Amaechi recently promised the Igbo community that if they vote for his candidate and All Progressives Congress (APC) governorship candidate, Tonye Cole, in Saturday’s election, the state would return to Igbo owners, their property declared abandoned by the military government immediately after the Nigerian Civil War.

Adangor, in a statement signed by Kelvin Ebiri, Special Assistant to Wike, declared that the issue of abandoned property in Rivers State is essentially and palpably one of law.

It reads: “You will recall that the Abandoned Property Edit No. 8 of 1969 established the Abandoned Property Custody and Management Authority and charged that authority and the responsibility of managing the property of non-indigenes left unattended during the civil war.

“The constitutionality of that law has been tested in several decisions of our court, including that of the Supreme Court and that law is still a subsisting law, and it has never been invalidated by any judgment of the court.

“It is, therefore, palpably injurious, if not completely misleading, for anybody to seek to politicise the issue of abandoned poverty. The matter, as far as we’re concerned, is closed legally and cannot be revisited.”

The Attorney General declared that by playing politics with the abandoned property issue, Amaechi does not mean well for Rivers State. Similarly, Secretary to the Rivers State Government, Dr. Tammy Danagogo, declared that the State Executive Council, in very strong terms, condemned “Amaechi’s recklessness in trying to reawaken the ghosts of the abandoned property issue in Rivers State.”

“I’m sure everybody, all of us know that, that matter has long been buried, and it is no longer practical or feasible to reawaken it. It beats every reasonable imagination why anybody would want to carry politics that far.

“We are urging every Rivers man or woman and our Igbo brothers, who have lived here peacefully with us to discountenance that misguided utterance.”

The state Commissioner for Information and Communications, Chris Finebone, alleged that Amaechi must be suffering from selective amnesia, because as the Speaker of the Rivers State House of Assembly years ago, he had declared the matter of abandoned property closed. (The Guardian)

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