Stop Wooing Wike, Rivers APC Tells Tinubu, Govs

The Evangelist edition
October 4, 2022

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Stakeholders of the All Progressives Congress in Rivers State, including candidates for the 2023 elections have called on the presidential candidate of the party, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, and governors of the South-West to stop hobnobbing with Governor Nyesom Wike.

The stakeholders comprising national assembly and state house of assembly candidates and other party faithful said it was discouraging for members of the party in Rivers State to see leaders of the party that they look up to romancing with a known political opponent like Governor Wike of the Peoples Democratic Party.

They frown that these leaders go as far as visiting the state to inaugurate projects on the invitation of the governor, this, they stressed help to campaign for the ruling party in the state by heaping praises on him (Wike) ahead of a general election.

They spoke at a one-day consultative meeting of the South-South executive committee presided over by the APC National Vice Chairman of the zone, Chief Victor Giadom, in Port Harcourt on Sunday evening.

The state APC legal adviser, Dike Iheanyi Zubi, while speaking at the meeting said it was unfair for Governors of the South-West to hold nocturnal meetings with Wike and return back to their states without bothering to an interface or speak with their party members in the state.

Zubi further said the action of Tinubu who has held meetings with Wike abroad and the action of the governors concerned were tantamount to anti-party activities and called on the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.) to call them (Tinubu and the South-West governors) to order.

He said, “It is very discouraging for the APC here in Rivers State to see a situation where the presidential candidate of our party, Ahmed Bola Tinubu and his handlers, including South-West Governors of the APC coming to the state to undermine our party here in Rivers State.

“And they begin to hobnob and hold nocturnal meetings with Wike, who is seen as a contender with the APC here in the state.

“So, we as APC members here frown at such action because it doesn’t encourage us here. We consider it as anti-party on the side of Ahmed Tinubu and his cohorts.

“Instead of coming to strengthen the Rivers State chapter of the party, they are busy hobnobbing with Governor Wike, who is a PDP member. For the APC in Rivers State, we see it as an affront and anti-party.

“So, I call on the national chairman of the party and President Buhari to call him (Tinubu) and his cohorts to order. They should stop dividing the Rivers APC. APC is one family.”

Similarly, a former caretaker committee chairman of Obio/Akpor Local Government Area and state house of assembly candidate for the 2023 election, Prof. Lawrence Chukwu, said the action of the party leaders was embarrassing to members of the state.

“As a party, the kind of embarrassment we are receiving from our leaders who come to Rivers State is unbearable.