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2010 Polls: Unclear Agenda Of Rivers New Restoration Team

March 22, 2010

The announcement of the birth of the New Restoration Team in Rivers state would have been welcomed with a thunderous applause but for the manner the utopian political conscription is being midwived which has made it looked as nothing but a daylight hallucination of handicapped minds.

The announcement of the birth of the New Restoration Team in Rivers state would have been welcomed with a thunderous applause but for the manner the utopian political conscription is being midwived which has made it looked as nothing but a daylight hallucination of handicapped minds.
Since the first statement on the birth of this ghost-populated New Restoration Team and the subsequent press releases especially the one captioned: “Groups, political parties dump Amaechi for the restoration team,” the central theme of the restoration group have unpretentiously harped on discrimination and hatred for non- rivers people resident in the state. It baffles all sane minds why a political association should launch itself on a platform capable of sinking it even before it comes to life. Why make it sound as if the purported new group is anti-non-indigenes especially the Ibos?

Politically speaking, it was an outright foolishness for this ‘riversman’ who was supposed to be the mouth piece of the New Restoration Team, a political pressure group, that will in the future canvass for followership under whatever guise, to announce the birth of the group with the chanting of hatred and discrimination against non-indigenes. That enough, is a political suicide that will continue to hunt the new group whenever it is born because for now, it remains a figment of imagination in the disgruntled minds of some disabled politicians.

This is an extract from a press release signed by one Jerry Needam on behalf of the new restoration team: “Governor Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi’s political fold suffered a major setback last weekend. This is sequel to a mass exodus that hit the fold arising from grudges and feelings of disregard and segregation by some members of the divided house.

“Rather than treat them with the deserved dignity having fought and won the election while he was away in self exile, the ostracized former loyalists of Amaechi said the governor has continually allowed the structure to be hijacked by strangers and political jobbers who pretend to love him more than themselves (the rivers people).

“The erstwhile members of Governor Amaechi’s power bloc are not alone in this song of segregation; other political parties that were hitherto deceived into the feigned unity government have also taken their exit from the unholy alliance….”

What a way to kick-off a political campaign. How can any group claim they are coming to salvage Rivers state when as politicians, they don’t even know that certain issues/believes, even if you strongly believe in such things, are better not pronounced in politics because they will immediately build opposing walls not to talk of even putting such mindsets down in writing.

From the press statement announcing the birth of the group to the latest release on the decampees, no single message to highlight what the group is coming to do- the vision and mission has been communicated to the electorate. Rather, the New Restoration Team has spent so much energy dividing the entire state into indigenes and non-indigenes; lovers and haters of Amaechi. Haba publicity secretary!

Now let’s ask the crucial question: What is the “New Restoration Team” coming to restore in Rivers state? This question has become pertinent because the antecedents of the old restoration team are still very fresh in the living memories of Rivers people- indigenes and strangers.

It should be pointed out that whosoever coined the name: “New Restoration Team” must be an unintelligent neophyte in politics of Rivers state. You don’t brand a salvation boat with ‘Angel of Death.’

Are they coming to restore anarchy; senseless bloodshed; inter and intra-community wars and destructions? Are they coming to restore the arming of young and able-bodied Rivers youths so that they can kill themselves or are they coming to restore the recruitment of unemployed youths (indigenes and non-indigenes) into politically engineered street cult groups that are perpetually engaged in gun battles with each other for no clear reasons?

Are they coming to restore the devilish looting of Rivers state treasury with impunity equaled only to that of lucifer? Are they coming to restore the over 18 billion naira public fund signed out from the Rivers state coffer between 11.00am of the day  the Supreme Court reinstated Rotimi Amaechi as governor and 10.00am the following morning that he arrived Port Harcourt to takeover? So what is this team coming to restore? You see why I said the coinage of the name of the association was done by a man with an IQ level that will shy a three-year old baby.

If the rivers people know what they are coming to restore, it will help them assess the sincerity or otherwise of this salvation group as the team has remained faceless even though its publicity secretary claimed that everybody in all the political parties in the state have decamped to this group that is coming to restore many things.

Whether true or imaginary, the old concept of ‘Restoration Team or Family’ was deeply associated with the spate of killings and senseless bloodshed that swept Rivers state during the previous administration. Since there is something in a name, maybe, this new team is coming back to restore the horrible experiences of Rivers people during that period.

The Rivers people are simply tired of living their day-to-day lives under war-like conditions and do not want anything or persons that would restore such horrific experiences to them. Rivers communities are tired of fighting themselves and living as refugees in other towns because of crisis in their villages.

As was rightly captured by a distinguished Rivers son, the announcement of the so-called New Restoration Team looks like a face-saving way to beat a return home after a frustrating sojourn on self-exile. As it’s well known everywhere, beating a retreat will always be masked in some last –kick- of- a dying -horse scenario.

IFEANYI IZEZE, ABUJA ([email protected])



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