Sheath your swords, first lady tells Rivers politicians

First Lady Dame Patience Jonathan has called on politicians in Rivers state to embrace peace for the sustainable development of the state and its peoples, describing the conflicts and violence as the most lethal threats to peace and development.

In a statement by her media aide, Ayo Osinlu, the First Lady urged all the warring politicians to spare a thought for the economic, social and political costs of the current crisis in the state.

The statement reads in part: “This office wishes to call on all feuding parties in Rivers State to spare a thought for the social, political and economic costs of the crisis, and consider an urgent way to resolve all political differences. It is our position that the greater consequences of the impasse is, as usual, reserved for the poor, the weak and the vulnerable, especially women and children, who are usually innocent bystanders in all these.

“This derives naturally from the saying that when two elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers. On a larger scale, we subscribe to the fact that conflicts and violence are the most lethal threats to peace, which itself is the irreducible minimum condition for development. The situation must therefore not be allowed to degenerate to a level that can be hijacked by miscreants and hoodlums, thus exposing everyone to insecurity from which there may be no easy escape.”