APC to Rivers Elders: Call Governor Wike to order

The All Progressives Congress, APC, in Rivers State has appealed to elders, as well as traditional and religious leaders in the state to call Governor Nyesom Wike to order, saying that the alleged unwarranted war against the Transport Minister, Rt. Hon. Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi, has crossed the bounds of reason.

The Rivers APC made the appeal in a statement signed by the State Chairman, Dr. Davies Ibiamu Ikanya, and released on Thursday in Port Harcourt, the State capital.

Enumerating Wike’s ‘sins’, Dr. Ikanya said: “We as a political party find it hard to understand why Governor Nyesom Wike is obsessed with disparaging, ridiculing and demonising the person and personality of Rt. Hon. Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi, his mentor, benefactor, predecessor and incumbent Minister of Transportation. We have watched with grave concern the ceaseless attacks on the Minister and we find it difficult to stomach such unwarranted onslaught on a peace-loving man who has sacrificed a lot in the building of a modern Rivers State.”

He said that the APC was aware of the alleged strategies deployed by Governor Wike to stop the nomination and confirmation of Amaechi as a Minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

Going further, he stated: “We are all aware of how Wike has tried to no avail to link Amaechi with the $43m of the Ikoyi saga and when the Presidency and court granted him opportunity to defend his claims he became dumb. For Wike to now turn his attention to Amaechi’s family and start attacking the Minister’s wife, Dame Judith Amaechi, is rascality taken too far.”

The party lamented that, “today, because of the obsession of Wike against Amaechi, he has abandoned governance in Rivers State and instead of finding solutions on how to pay the salaries and pensions of civil servants and pensioners owed for months in the State, he prefers to waste Rivers State money in attending European football matches with his cronies and commissioning of roads and bridges built by Amaechi and building of parks as achievements in a period when other States are busy building crucial and key projects.

The APC Chairman alleged that while Lagos State Signed $3 billion Agreement with Investors for 3,000 MW, the governor was busy signing amnesty for cultists and repented criminals to continue with their nefarious acts.

Dr. Ikanya said that instead of finding solutions to the menace of insecurity, the governor was allegedly busy with how to decimate the personality of Amaechi, adding that instead of rediscovering the status of Port Harcourt as the garden city of Nigeria, he was busy celebrating Port Harcourt as a city of garbage.

“Today, Wike has ran his government aground by running the State without Budgetary provisions as nobody including those in his government have any idea of how the State is funded as Wike runs the State as a Sole-Administrator without Executive Council in a democratic dispensation. Instead of empowering Dr (Mrs) Ipalibo Harry Banigo the Rivers State Deputy Governor, he decided to turn her to a Special Aide to his wife, Justice Eberechi Suzzette Nyesom-Wike, this is sad and unfortunate knowing the pedigree of this great daughter of Rivers State.

The party also said: “As much as we thank God for sustaining the life of the Minister against all these unwarranted attacks, we wish to ask and plead with elders, traditional and religious leaders in Rivers State to intervene and call Governor Wike to order. As a concerned stakeholder in the politics and wellbeing of our dear State, we appeal to all men of good faith both within and outside Rivers State to call this man to order before he runs naked because of his obsession to run down Amaechi, who made him. This call becomes imperative to stop Wike from bringing further shame to Rivers State and her people.”

According to the statement, “For Wike to publicly declare that he stopped the Scholarship Scheme initiated and executed by Amaechi for the greatness, progress and future of Rivers State because he feels that the scheme contains the names of Igbos and other tribes exposes Wike as a fellow not suitable to hold public office in Nigeria. In other words, we can also accept it as a fact that why he closed most of the sophisticated primary and secondary schools built by the administration of Amaechi is because non-indigenes were allowed to school in such schools. It can only also said to be true that Wike sacked and refused to pay the 13,000 teachers engaged by the administration of Amaechi because some non-indigenes are among them.

“Rivers APC attributed Wike’s excesses to the fact that the people of Rivers State never voted for him but he was imposed on them “by the haters of the progress we made while at the helms of affairs in Rivers State, led by the then president, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, who was intent of punishing Rivers State, having ceded our oils wells to Bayelsa, Akwa Ibom and Abia states,” the APC stated.