Soldiers take over Port Harcourt stadium preventing President Jonathan from using it for his presidential campaign

This brawl over ceded oil wells and political differences between President Jonathan and governor Amaechi, who are both from the South-South geopolitical zone of the country have been on for a while now. It keeps getting fueled by more issues like President Jonathan calling governor Amaechi a rascal and allegations that the First Lady asked governor Amaechi to bring Rivers State’s money to share.

Soldiers have barricaded the Adokiye Amiesimaka Stadium in Port Harcourt three days after Rivers State Governor, Chibuike Amaechi, said the facility couldn’t be used for President Goodluck Jonathan’s presidential campaign slated for Thursday.

Residents of Igwurate community were surprised yesterday when scores of soldiers stormed the Adokiye Amiesimaka Stadium and took over the entire facility, which has been in contention between the Rivers State Government and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) that had applied to use the facility for President Jonathan’s re-election campaign rally.

Similarly, security agents, including soldiers have been deployed to Okrika, Rivers State, after the venue for the All Progressives Congress(APC) governorship rally was attacked with an explosive device suspected to be dynamite by unidentified assailants.

Governor Amaechi had earlier declared that the State would not grant the PDP permission to use the 40,000 capacity stadium because of ongoing construction work, even though the APC used the same stadium on two occasions for its rally. But the party had threatened to forcefully use the stadium because the state government and its party, the APC, had used it twice in the past one month.

According to him, when his party, the APC, used the stadium for two of its recent rallies, the contractor had to move his equipment out of site and undisclosed amount was later spent to return the equipment to site.

The governor, who stated that the state government had offered the PDP other alternative venue, said the contractor had personally complained to him that he needs to complete construction work at the stadium before May, and that he could no longer accept further disruption.

Credits:Guardian