Former First Lady, Patience Jonathan Finally Speaks On Rivers Crisis

• Reacting to the troubling state of affairs in the oil-rich southern State, she admonished the two warring parties to sheath their swords and give peace a chance.

A former First Lady, Patience Jonathan, has finally broken her long silence on the crisis going on Rivers State.

Mrs Jonathan, who, alongside her husband, former president Goodluck Jonathan, played a crucial in the emergence of Nyesom Wike as the governor of the State in 2015, has been unusually silent about the imbroglio.

Wike served as minister of State for education during Jonathan’s administration.

Reacting to the troubling state of affairs in the oil-rich southern State, she admonished the two warring parties to sheath their swords and give peace a chance.

The former First Lady made the issued the admonition at the 60th anniversary of the Nigeria Institute of Public Relations (NIPR) international colloquium in Abuja on Thursday.

Speaking on the theme, ‘Public Relations, Value Re-orientation and Economic Transformation,’ the former first lady urged the warring parties to allow the present administration of Rivers State to run smoothly without interference.

For months on end now, Rivers has been enmeshed in a crisis following the fallout of former Governor Nyesom Wike and Governor Siminalayi Fubara.

After leaving office in May 2023, Wike was later appointed FCT Minister by President Bola Tinubu-led All Progressives Congress, APC, government.

Last year, 27 lawmakers loyal to wike defected to the APC after which the initiated an impeachment proceedings against Fubara which failed.

Fubara and the Rivers State House of Assembly have been daggers drawn with the pro-Wike lawmakers overriding and vetoing the governor on some crucial bills in the state.

On Tuesday, a substance believed to be dynamite went off near the Presidential Hotel axis of the Aba Expressway in Port Harcourt causing panic in the area. The state government later said it had arrested the suspect who detonated the explosive, adding that it was part of plan to declare emergency rule in the State.