The Rivers State Executive Council has described as unconscionable the attempt by former Minister of Transportation, Chibuike Amaechi to instigate hostility between Igbo and the people of the state over legally foreclosed issue of abandoned property of non-indigenes.
It will be recalled that Amaechi, a former governor of Rivers state, had recently promised the Igbo that if they voted for his crony, APC governorship candidate, Tonye Cole in Saturday’s election, the state will return to Igbo owners their property declared abandoned by the military government immediately after the Nigerian civil war.
Addressing journalists in Government House, Port Harcourt, after the State Executive Council meeting presided over by Governor Nyesom Ezenwo Wike, the Rivers state Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice, Prof. Zacchaeus Adangor, SAN, described Amaechi’s obnoxious attempt to play politics with the hot button issue of abandoned property that is considered legally closed and cannot be revisited as “distasteful.”
He said the issue of abandoned property in Rivers state is essentially and palpably one of law.
“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,” he said.
The attorney general declared that by playing toxic politics with abandoned property issue, Amaechi does not mean well for Rivers state.
