Cardinal Onaiyekan lambasts PDP over crisis in Rivers

The Metropolitan Catholic Archbishop of Abuja, John Cardinal Onaiyekan, has lambasted the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) over the crisis playing out in Rivers State.
Onaiyekan, who berated the party over the suspension slammed on the Governor of Rivers State, Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi, said the whole thing does not make sense.
Speaking on the suspension of Amaechi by the PDP and the alleged impeachment moves against him during the Italian National Day in Abuja, Onaiyekan said: “The whole thing does not make sense to me. The only sense it makes, is that this is again, the rascality of our politicians at play.
“When politicians quarrel, they begin to play dirty games on one another. In the process, nobody is thinking of the poor people. I am not sure all this talk has anything to do with service of the people of Rivers State. And it is a pity,” Onaiyekan said.
Onaiyekan further said: “Of course, if PDP wants to impeach him, everybody knows that they can because I am told that all members of the State Assembly of Rivers State, are all PDP, which in itself, is a suspicious fact that all members of a particular House of Assembly are of the same one party.
“What kind of election did they have? And what kind of democracy are we talking about? Can you imagine the National Assembly being all of one party and we claim that we are practising democracy? We are joking.
“So, the whole thing has been flawed from the beginning. How it will end, I don’t know.”
On the state of emergency declared in Borno, Yobe and Adamawa states, the former President of the Christian Association of Nigeria, CAN, and the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Nigeria, commen- ded President Goodluck Jonathan, saying, “this was a state of emergency with a difference.”
According to Onaiyekan: “Very often or most of the time, when a state of emergency is declared, the democratic structures are suppressed and someone is appointed to run affairs.
“In this case, the governors have been left in their place as well as the local government chairmen.”