By
Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye
All those people out there
speculating on the motives of the Rivers State Governor, Mr. Nyesom Wike, and
condemning him for ordering the arrest of the 22 ExxonMobil staff who flouted
the executive order signed by the governor to stop the movement of people from
other states into Rivers in order to check the spread of coronavirus in the
state should hide their faces in shame and thoroughly interrogate themselves to
determine whether they are not labouring under the usual debilitating
inferiority complex that often pushes some “natives” to prefer to endanger
their people’s lives in order to please the “White Massa”?
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| Gov Wike |
If it were some “ordinary” people
from Akwa-Ibom that were arrested for breaching the law in Rivers State, would
there have been any uproar? Would that have earned even a footnote mention in
the media? I can imagine what will be the fate of some workers of a Nigerian
company operating in the United States who chose to brazenly flout a movement
restriction order in the state of Texas, the home of ExxonMobil, for whatever
reason!
Addressing a press conference in
Port Harcourt on Friday, April 17, Wike said: “Security agencies arrested 22
staff of Exxon Mobil who came into the state from neighbouring Akwa Ibom State
in violation of the extant Executive Order restricting movement into the state.
We do not know the coronavirus status of these individuals. Even though
security agencies advised that they be allowed to go back to Akwa Ibom State, I
insisted that the law must take its course. This is because nobody is above the
law. As a responsive government, we have quarantined them in line with the
relevant health protocols and they will be charged to court.”
Certainly, this is how civilized
and rule-governed societies are run. There are no set of laws for the masses
and another set for some gaggle of privileged lawbreakers.
