Wike: Amaechi can’t say I was his employee, I made him governor

Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers state has said he made Rotimi Amaechi, his predecessor, the governor of the state.

Recently, Amaechi and Wike, who fell up in the buildup to the 2015 general elections, renewed their hostility.

• BREAKING: Ortom Escapes Death As Gunmen Open Fire On His Convoy
• ‘Despite challenges, Nigerian women breaking barriers’

In an interview he granted last week, Amaechi had said he would not descend to the level of Wike, whom he described as his former employee.

“I don’t think I want to address the issue of the governor, I have made my point and I have moved on,” Amaechi had said.

“He was my staff, I can’t bring myself low. I was a governor, I was also a speaker, I’m a minister. I was two-term chairman of governors’ forum. The same when I was a speaker. Why should I be discussing him?”

But in an interview with the BBC Pidgin service on Friday, Wike said it is not possible to be an employee of Amaechi whom he made governor.

“Amaechi and I were in the same party, and in politics, everybody has his own ambition. He had his ambition to be governor, and at the time, I didn’t. So, we fought and supported him to be governor.”

“Now he’s in APC, and you don’t expect me as a PDP person to support what he does. I was the one God used to make Amaechi governor. I will even give you a tape from what he said in the church; that after God, I’m next. But when he was talking the other day, saying I was his staff, his employee, I said no problem.

“We all sat to make you governor, and I was the one who championed it. How do you call someone who made you governor an employee? When he became governor, he asked me; how are we going to run this government, and he offered me to be commissioner of finance, but I said no, let me be in the chief of staff office.

“That time I made him governor, I had power to choose. People know in this state. With his APC, did they even score 25 percent here during the 2015 and 2019 elections? His staff stopped him from winning Rivers for his presidential candidate? Stopped him from winning the governorship election for his candidate? Not even a senatorial seat?

“Well, we have passed that. He said over his dead body will I be governor, now I am looking for that dead body. In 2015 when I won, they said PDP was in power, but I also won again in 2019 when APC was in power.”