Rivers Crisis: First Lady, Dame Patience Calls For Peaceful Resolution

First Lady, Dame Patience Jonathan has called for the peaceful resolution of the crisis currently rocking Rivers state, urging the feuding parties to consider the social, political and economic costs of the crisis to the state and its people and urgently find a way of resolving their political differences amicably.

Dame Jonathan in a statement in Abuja, by her Senior Special Assistant on Monday, Ayo Osinlu, said if the crisis was not resolved, “the greater consequence of the impasse is, as usual, reserved for the poor, the weak and the vulnerable, especially women and children, who are usually innocent bystanders in all these.


”This derives naturally from the saying that when two  elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers. On a larger scale, we subscribe to the fact that conflicts and violence are the most lethal threats to peace, which itself is the irreducible minimum condition for development.

”The situation must, therefore, not be allowed to degenerate to a level that can be hijacked by miscreants and hoodlums, thus exposing everyone to insecurity from which there may be no easy escape.

”We, therefore, call on elders of the state to intervene in the matter and continue  to seek the highest good of Rivers State and its people, by stone-walling the activities of the few, who would rather fan little embers into a consuming inferno.

The first lady apparently referring to the criticism of Nobel Laureate, Wole Soyinka also said “Recent experience where certain otherwise respected elders of the country, from within and outside Rivers State, were canvassing views that seemed to intensify the heat in Rivers State, is certainly unfortunate.”

“We also recall recent pictures of some youths on the streets of Port Harcourt, obviously in an angry mood, a worrisome suggestion that the crisis is already threatening to spill to the streets, a dimension we cannot afford to allow to escalate for obvious reasons.

“We must stress that the people of the state desire and look forward to an end to the hostilities, to pave way for higher economic activities and nobler political engagements that will guarantee an enhancement of their welfare. “It is therefore incumbent on all people of goodwill to seek to restore peace, brotherliness and love in Rivers State, for the state to press forward in the direction of growth and progress.”