Chairman of the Etche Local Government Area, Hon. Boniface Njoku, has declared that he and his colleagues are “not qualified” to serve as local government chairmen, saying former Rivers State Governor and current FCT Minister, Nyesom Wike, personally chose the 23 council chairmen because of the confidence he had in them.
Njoku made the remarks while reacting to a reported security incident involving the Eleme and Okirika communities, saying the chairmen would not allow anyone to create a crisis in the state.
“Yesterday afternoon, I had a distress call that there is a heavy gunshot between Eleme and Okirika. I said there is no way it can happen because we are not qualified to be the chairman of our various local government. But this man took time to select all of us, 23 of us on board. We can’t bring disgrace to him? I swiftly called my colleagues and put them on call and, to the glory of God, they answered,” he said.
He added that the bond among the local government chairmen and the communities they serve had helped prevent the situation from escalating.
Njoku maintained that the Eleme and Okirika communities share common ancestry and should not be divided by individuals bent on causing unrest.
“We have the same blood, the same DNA. Even if one has gone wrong, we must understand ourselves. Nobody can enter today to cause any problem between these two families. They don’t know that we are well selected to be the chairmen of our various local governments. Nothing on this earth can make them cause trouble between Eleme and Okirika or any local government in this state,” he stated.
The Etche council chairman commended the Nigeria Police Force, the Department of State Services (DSS), and other security agencies for responding promptly to the incident, adding that their intervention helped restore calm.
He insisted that the affected communities were not at war, attributing the disturbance to what he described as “so-called Boko Haram” elements.
