Rivers crisis: Another Amaechi’s supporter forced to resign

From CHRIS ANUCHA, PORT HARCOURT

Rivers State governor, Hon Chibuike Rotimi Aamechi, yesterday lost one of his supporters to Wike group.  He is the Rivers State Local Government Service Commissioner, Chief Azubike Nmerukini. Chief Azubuike Nmerukini was said to have been forced to resign his position, as the Chairman of the Rivers State Local Government Service Commission (RSLGSC), thereby, bringing to three, the number of the governor’s supporters who resigned their appointments since Rivers State political crisis started.
The first to resign was the Special Adviser on, Flood Control, Hon. Obinna Anyanwu, who left because of the anti-Amaechi position of his father, Prince Emma Anyanwu. Following him was, Commissioner for Urban Development, Dr. Tammy Wenike Danagogo, who quit Amaechi’s government following the governor’s defection to the All Progressives Congress (APC).
Though Nmerukini, who was the immediate past Mayor of Port Harcourt City, told newsmen in Port Harcourt that his resignation was based on personal reasons, but Saturday Sun gathered that he was forced to go as a result of his refusal to defect to the APC with the governor.
A source confided in Saturday Sun, that the former chairman of the Association of Local Governments of Nigeria (ALGON) in the state, was made answerable to the Ministry of Local Government Affairs, after it was glaring that he was no longer on the side of the governor. He said; “On Tuesday, a memo dated January 6, 2014, which came from the Office of the Secretary to the State Government, directed that the Chairman of the Local Government Service Commission and his commissioners, should be reporting to Commissioner for Local Government Affairs.
“That memo alone will tell you that something is wrong because since the crisis started in the state, the chairman (Nmerukini) has refused to say anything about the crisis. Also his refusal to join the governor and others to move into the APC heightened the suspicion in Amaechi’s camp that he may not be with them.”
Saturday Sun gathered that the governor’s camp had on several occasions, accused Nmerukini of being a member of Grassroots Development Initiative (GDI), a socio-political group that had been a pain in the neck of Amaechi’s administration.

Source: Sun