The Save Ogoni Environment (SOE) has described as a big shame the fallout of the recently paid solidarity visit by an Ogoni Political group to Gov Amaechi in Port Harcourt.
The SOE received with great disappointment the embarrassing report that participants of the Tuesday, March 25, 2013 solidarity visit to Gov Amaechi at Government House Port Harcourt were torn apart over the deceit and failure of the event’s sponsors to pay them reasonably.
In a statement issued by the chairman, Elder Peter Deegbara the group stated that it is her privileged information that the participants expected to be paid as much as N500,000 each but were cut below the belt with the payment of N100,000 to each person after their meeting with the Governor, a situation that sparked serious argument and confrontation with the leaders and sponsors of the trip, as the participants demanded that the money be paid as promised, before they opted to join in the visit.
We gathered on authentic ground that it took the intervention and serious plea by some chiefs at the venue to impress on the group members to give in for calm as more money was being assured.
We feel pained over this disgusting scenario which does not portray the people of Ogoni in good light.
Apart from the fact that the journey was ill-conceived, and does not represent the views and interest of the people of Ogoni, it is our conviction that the forum also did not draw on board mature, objective and patriotic sons and daughters of Ogoni, otherwise, such shameful and embarrassing action would have been avoided.
While we again call on the good people of Ogoni to continue to maintain their neutral stand in the frosty relationship between the Governor and the Presidency, it is our candid opinion to appeal to President Goodluck Jonathan not to take such visit seriously, as to the best of our knowledge, it does not represent the position of the Ogoni people.
We also believe that it will do the people of Ogoni better if they do not allow themselves to be lured into an ill-managed disagreement between the PDP politicians.
Again, we observed that the trip was at the instance of a particular PDP politician, who aims to impose his governorship ambition on the people of Ogoni, an attempt all Ogonis must resist if they must enjoy the full dividends of democracy.
Elder Peter Deegbara
Chairman