The former governor of Rivers State, Nyesom Wike, Wednesday, gave reasons for his fight with his successor and former ally, Siminalayi Fubara, Premium Times reports.
Mr Wike, after a meeting with some Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) governors in Abuja, accused Mr Fubara of hobnobbing with his political adversaries.
“You cannot work, and people will begin to bring enemies; those who fought you when you were struggling for the person to be in office. Nobody does that,” Mr Wike, the current minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), was quoted as saying by the News Agency of Nigeria.
The former governor, who denied that he was seeking financial gratification from his successor, suggested that Mr Fubara was trying to take control of the PDP structure in Rivers.
“I am not a political ingrate but don’t touch the political structure of the state. I will not shut my eyes,” Mr Wike said.
This is the second time in less than 24 hours Mr Wike has publicly commented on the political crisis in Rivers.
The crisis between Messrs Wike and Fubara worsened this week when the Rivers State House of Assembly attempted to commence impeachment proceedings against Mr Fubara.
Most of the state lawmakers are loyal to Mr Wike who helped install Mr Fubara before both men went their ways.
The state lawmakers, as part of their moves against Mr Fubara, had suspended the House Leader Edison Ehie and other three lawmakers – Victor Okoh (Bonny Constituency), Goodboy Sokari (Ahoada West Constituency) and Adulphus Timothy (Opobo/Nkoro Constituency) – said to be the governor’s loyalist.
A part of the Rivers House of Assembly Complex was destroyed by an explosion on Sunday, a day before the impeachment attempt.
On Monday, some police operatives fired teargas and water cannons at Mr Fubara as the governor, accompanied by security aides and some youths, apparently his political supporters, was walking towards the assembly complex to assess the extent of damage from the explosion.
The police said on Wednesday that Governor Fubara was in the midst of “aggressive” people who were marching towards the Rivers House of Assembly Complex and that the operatives deployed “non-lethal crowd control equipment including tear gas and water cannon to disperse the riotous and uncontrollable protesters”.
“The presence of the Governor at the scene was of great surprise and shock as there was no prior communication to the Police on the visit of the Governor to the scene of the crime which ordinarily is the usual protocol and complimentary that we accompany his guard for proper safety considering the intelligence of security threat at hand then,” the police spokesperson in Rivers, Grace Iringe-Koko, said in a statement on behalf of the Commissioner of Police in the state, Polycarp Emeka.
Fubara, Wike tried to play down on crisis
In his earlier comment, Mr Wike had said that the Rivers crisis was a PDP affair and that the party was looking into it.
Governor Fubara, on Wednesday, also attempted to play down the crisis and the rift between him and his predecessor, when he said the crisis was merely a problem between “father and son”.
“There is nothing wrong if a father and a son have a problem if there is any problem, but I don’t think there is anything; whatever it is, we will definitely resolve the issue,” Mr Fubara told a visiting military delegation led by the Chief of Defence Staff, Christopher Musa, at the Government House in Port Harcourt.
Before now, President Bola Tinubu, on Tuesday, had mediated the crisis during the meeting of the National Police Council at the presidential villa which was attended by Messrs Fubara and Wike.
The police council headed by the president includes all the state governors and the FCT minister, many of whom were present for Tuesday’s meeting.
____
Follow us on Twitter at @thesignalng
Copyright 2023 SIGNAL. Permission to use portions of this article is granted provided appropriate credits are given to www.signalng.com and other relevant sources.
