Pressure mounts on Jonathan’s aide, Allison, to contest Rivers’ governorship

OOne of President Goodluck Jonathan’s personal assistants, Larry Allison, has come under pressure to join the race for the Brick House, the coveted seat of power, come 2015. Kalabari-born Allison is from the riverine section of the state which is clamouring for power shift.

Some of those clamouring for Allison have even threatened to secure court order to force him into the race, should the president’s man refuse the call of the people. Allison, a Kalabari chief, was an ambassador, but is now a chieftain of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), and a prominent member of the Goodluck Support Group (GSG).

One of those clamouring for Allison’s entry is a prominent businessman man and Etche chief, Clement Anele, who is the president-general of Etche Peoples Democratic Front (EPDF).

The call from Etche seems to challenge the impression that the entire Etche people had endorsed the minister of state for education, Nyesom Wike, also a Jonathan front-man. A leader from the area, Emma Anyanwu, had stirred the bee’s hive when he declared that Wike was unopposed in the race, a declaration that brought all groups shouting yes or no.

Now, Anele said he has joined several others to demand that Allison make his intention public or risk being dragged to court to so do.

In a statement issued in Port Harcourt, the president-general of EPDF described the former ambassador as the ‘face of change in 2015’, adding that since democracy is a game of numbers, that the God-fearing and reliable leader, Allison, was the right man at the right moment.

The Etche chief, who is also the chief executive of Yamatin International Agency (YIA), a shipping agency, insisted that zoning system was a political strategy to bring about all-inclusive platforms for a diversity of ethnicities such as Rivers State.

Allison was recently quoted in the press to have warned the PDP in Rivers State against the mistake of fielding yet another upland person for the brick House in 2015, after 16 years. He had spoken at a dinner organised by the Chairman of Innoson Motors, Innocent Chukwuma, for the members of the Goodluck Support Group (GSG) in Abuja where he alleged warned that no candidate from the state upland would successfully win the 2015 governorship election in the state.

He was said to have urged the leadership of the PDP in the state to consider the position of the riverine people in the state, stressing that it was their turn to produce the governor for the first time in 16 years.

In seeming agreement with the 2014position, the Etche group reminded people of the state that the upland section of the state has had its turn. Anele described Allison as a man with the genuine spirit of might, devotion, dedication and determination who he said did not take pleasure in the wages of another’s labour.

Anele affirmed that Allison was the best agenda for the PDP in Rivers State as a long-awaited, accountable responsible, reliable, yours-for-service personality that would ensure that every section of Rivers State got its due.

Calling for the prayers of the women, youth and the churches in the state, the YIA chief executive said an Allison leadership would facilitate a more competent delivery of dividends of democracy to everyone’s doorstep in the state.

For democracy to deliver development, however, Anele wants the people of the state to give peace a chance and shun the present political divide (probably referring to the fierce hostility between the Chibuike Amaechi camp and the Wike camp. He has also recommended for reconciliation between the two forces.

To him, what is paramount in Rivers State at the moment, he said, is to show love to the PDP by mobilising for Jonathan as an in-law so as to enable the first president from the south-south complete his projects and his constitutional right for a second term.