Scores of Ogoni people took to the streets in Port Harcourt on Thursday to protest the endorsement of a member of the House of Representatives, Mr. Dakuku Peterside, as the governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress.
Peterside was on Wednesday chosen as the APC governorship candidate in Rivers State ahead of the member representing Rivers South-East in the National Assembly, Senator Magnus Abe, a native of Ogoniland.
The lawmaker representing Andoni/Opobo/Nkoro Federal Constituency in the House of Representatives emerged as the party’s consensus governorship candidate during a stakeholders’ meeting.
But the people of Ogoni, who were mainly youths, vowed that they would not accept the verdict of the stakeholders and advised the leader of the party and the state Governor, Mr. Rotimi Amaechi, to rescind the decision and conduct a governorship primary.
The youths had marched through the popular Azikiwe Road to the main gate of the Government House in Port Harcourt, insisting that the governor betrayed Ogoni by ‘anointing’ Peterside as the governorship candidate of the APC.
The protesters, who had earlier blocked major points of the East-West Road in Eleme Local Government Area, chanted war songs, even as some of them threw stones that damaged some vehicles parked near the Government House.
It took the intervention of policemen, who shot sporadically into the air to disperse the protesters, a development that forced banks on Azikiwe Road to close temporarily.
Customers, who were inside the banks, were not allowed to move out while those intending to come in were asked to go back as a result of the deafening sound of gunshots from security operatives.
The police also fired tear-gas canisters to disperse the surging crowd of protesters, who maintained that they would continue to protest until the governor changed his mind on the choice of governorship candidate.