Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike, has maintained that the demolition of the two hotels in Eleme Local Government Area of the state was done in line with extant laws, saying the state government has done no wrong.

Speaking during a state-wide broadcast on Sunday night, Wike explained that the owner of the two hotels unleashed thugs to attack members of the state task force that went to enforce the law against their continued operations.

The governor added that most of the task force members sustained severe head injuries from the attack.

He said,

We acted against the hotelier because apart from using the facility to jeopardise the lives of our citizens in violation of the extant law, the owner audaciously unleashed thugs led by the Eleme Local Government Youth Leader of the Peoples Democratic Party and inflicted severe injuries on our task force members, who went to enforce the law against the continued operation of the hotel.

We’ve done no wrong as all our actions were taken in good faith and justified by, under and within the purview of the Executive Orders, which have neither been challenged nor set aside by any competent court of law.

Therefore, while we welcome genuine criticisms directed towards strengthening our intervention measures, it is no use taking issues with uninformed critics and social media legal practitioners.

Granted that we may not have totally achieved our targets, but we are convinced that, so far, the lockdown and the other measures have impacted greatly in containing and preventing the onslaught of the pandemic on Rivers State.

Justin Nwosu

Justin Nwosu is the founder and publisher of Flavision. His core interest is in writing unbiased news about Nigeria in particular and Africa in general. He’s a strong adherent of investigative journalism, with a bent on exposing corruption, abuse of power and societal ills.