On July 9, 2013, the people of Rivers State, and indeed Nigerians, woke to the news of the terrible mayhem on the floor of the Rivers State House of Assembly.

Five lawmakers led by Hon Evans Bipi were attempting the absurd and abominable. The renegade group had launched an attack on the country’s wobbly democracy, shockingly with the full backing of the police command and the powers that be. The aim being to impeach the former governor of Rivers State, Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi, who was then considered an enfant terrible by Abuja.

It had taken the timely arrival of then courageous Leader of the House and member representing Emohua State Constituency, Hon Chidi Lloyd, to save Rivers people and the country the shame and global mockery such ignominy perpetuated by five lawmakers - under the leading of then Minister of (State) Education, Chief Nyesom Wike - would have caused.

While the Nigerian political space had indeed been marked by both the profane and disgustful display of impunity in crass desperation for power by political gladiators, never before had five floor members assumed the power of the 2/3 constitutional provision to impeach an elected executive.

Yet, it had taken the patriotic and bold arrival and commitment of Chidi Lloyd with help of the ADC and CSO to the former governor, notwithstanding the threat to their own life courtesy of the presence of multitudes of militants and touts who served as cover for the now famous 5, to prevent the peaceful and progressive state then under the leadership of Hon Amaechi, from sliding into anarchy all because of one man's governorship ambition.

Today, that same man, Governor Nyesom Wike, again for his personal ulterior motive, has singled out Chidi Lloyd for media persecution and character assassination, as a result of that July 9, 2013 incident; while in truth and reality, Lloyd stood out gallantly as one of the few bold defenders of democracy in our time.

One, therefore, wonders why the Rivers State Government has failed to prosecute Evans Bipi for desecrating the hallowed chambers by mobilising touts to attack and maim elected legislators, and also attempting to ridicule sanctity of the Rivers State Legislature.

As law-abiding Nigerians, we are comforted by the words of this truism, “Justice may be delayed, but cannot be denied.”

We are living witnesses to the eventual justice and recognition that has finally come for the actual winner of the June 12, 1993 presidential election, Chief MKO Abiola, more than 20 years after his travails.

I am confident that a day will also come, hopefully, not too far in the future, when the true villains and heroes of the events of that scary and historic Tuesday morning would emerge.

As a Rivers man and witness to most of what transpired on that day and the months that followed, I can boldly state that if the current Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, had decided to perpetuate a repeat of the large scale impunity ingloriously executed by then Minister of State for Education, the state would have been too hot for the latter to govern.

Power, they say, is transient and is given by God. Wike and his cronies will not remain in government forever. He should appreciate God for the opportunity given him by facing governance, which he so craved, and desist from making ridicule of Rivers State by his witch-hunt of Chidi Lloyd.

•Obinna Egbogidi wrote in from Port Harcourt, Rivers State.

Update news