For the overall interest and genuine peace of Rivers state and its people, the state government has been advised to urgently convene a peace, security and reconciliation summit as a matter of urgency, which will study and proffer solutions to the seeming intractable security situation across the state.

A chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the South-South region, Chief Eze Chukwuemeka Eze, who gave the word of advice in a statement issued and circulated in Port Harcourt on Sunday also charged the Chief Nyesom Wike-led administration in the state to leave aside its ego and allow reason guide its decisions at this critical point by dusting the Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi-era security blueprint for the state, restart its implementation and save everybody from the ongoing needless waste of lives and properties across the state.

Eze, who has been one of the loudest advocates of good governance in Rivers state and one-time National spokesman of the defunct new Peoples Democratic Party (nPDP), also charged Governor Wike to drop his act of prevarication, stay true to his recent call for peace in the political arena and not toy with the idea of victimising leaders of the APC who served in the Rt. Hon Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi-led administration in the name of a guided witch-hunt called an investigation.

Touching on the need to pay an urgent attention to the security situation in the state, Eze noted that the reports going out of Rivers State in the last few years had been most unpleasant, noting that all sincere watchers of events in the state will agree that the turn of events since the advent of the Wike era had been a very sad and gory departure from the peaceful and secure state that the Amaechi administration ran, noting also that most of the intricate security architecture that the previous administration, under the watch of Amaechi, put in place for the peace and security of the state had been shut down by the Wike government.

“Any sound and concerned lover of Rivers State must be worried by the tales of woes and the level of insecurity facing the state at the moment. Everyday, it is either a bus conveying passengers is kidnapped or people are being killed and beheaded or that foreigners and investors are rushing out of the State in droves or the state is rated as the number one state in Nigeria that harbours the highest number of unemployed youths,” he lamented.

To aptly capture the real picture of the state of things in Rivers, Eze recalled the pain-laden recap recently given about the ugly situation in the state by Rt. Hon. Rotimi Amaechi, when he said “no doubt, our state has endured a tortuous political season, which saw political parties jostle and cajole Rivers people to make choices. Our state, which was known and respected as the Treasure Base of the nation, is now almost always in the news for the wrong reasons. This is not the Rivers State of our dreams.”

He, however, advised that to achieve lasting peace in the state, the Governor, as a matter of urgency, must convoke a peace, security and reconciliation summit, involving key Christian leaders, traditional rulers, key political leaders, youths and women leaders, security experts and elders from all over the state.

The summit, he said, will be expected to point out why the state is in its present sad situation and proffer suggestions on the ways out of it, adding that the era of paying lip service to issues of the greatness and future of the state should be ended.

He said the present status of Rivers state as home to the highest number of unemployed youths in Nigeria is not acceptable, hence he commended the governor for lifting embargo on employment in the state's civil service, saying: “This is one factor that has enhanced insecurity in the state and to save the state from this time bomb, Wike must revive all the industries that Amaechi set up during his tenure as the governor of Rivers State.

“These include the Songhai Farm, the Buguma Fish Farm and others that enabled Amaechi to employ over 500,000 youths of Rivers State.”

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