Rivers gov’ship: Wike, Amaechi battle for PDP, APC candidates

Rivers State governor, Nyesom Wike, and his predecessor, Chibuike Amaechi, are battling ahead of this Saturday’s governorship election in the state.

The two political gladiators are not contesting any election, but are supporting their respective candidates to win the election.

While Wike is working for the governorship candidate of his party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Sim Fubara, Amaechi, a former Minister of Transportation, is supporting the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Pastor Tonye Cole, to win the poll.

The two prominent politicians have engaged in a war of words, accusations and counter-accusations to outdo each other in the state.

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Recall that Wike and Amaechi have been at daggers drawn for many years now over divergent political interests.

Pundits say the election is a straight battle between Amaechi and Wike as it has almost become a norm that they battle in each election season.

Governor Wike had during a campaign rally cautioned the electorate against voting for Amaechi’s candidate, saying a vote for him will impede the alleged prosecution of both Amaechi and Cole over the alleged sale of the state’s gas turbine.

The governor also berated the former transportation minister on his promise to the Igbo residents in the state that Tonye Cole would compensate any of them whose property was destroyed as a result of their decision to vote for him (Cole).

The former minister had during his meeting with Igbo residents in the state castigated Governor Wike, accusing him of destroying businesses owned by the Igbo in the name of constructing a flyover.

He also accused Wike of stopping the sponsorship of annual pilgrims where lots of non-indigenes benefitted.

But the governor said the warning has become necessary following “reckless instigation of needless war” between the Igbo and Rivers people by Amaechi.

He also accused Amaechi of resurrecting the issues of abandoned property that happened during Nigeria’s civil war over 50 years ago, as one of the reasons why the electorate needs to be wary of the APC candidate.

Governor Wike insisted that Tonye Cole and his master, Chibuike Amaechi, are insensitive to the danger in the “the animosity they are triggering and what it will cause in the state in their inordinate and dubious quest for power.”

Meanwhile, youths of Rivers State under the umbrella of the National Youth Council of Nigeria (NYCN) have warned non-indigenes resident in the state to stop interfering in the politics of the state.

The NYCN in a communiqué issued by its president, Chijioke Ihunwo, at the end of its summit in Port Harcourt, frowned  at what it described as the interference of non-indigenes in the political affairs of the state and warned  that the teeming youths of the state would rise against them if they don’t stop their activities.

The group pointed out that the state had enough human and material resources to manage and determine its political future and warned that it can no longer fold its arms and watch non-indigenes determine the political future of the state.

“We have resolved that as much as we would continue to tolerate, accommodate and extend our hands of fellowship and amity to non-indigenous residents in our midst, we wish to sound it loud and clear that Rivers youths shall vehemently, stoutly, sternly and legitimately resist any manifest form of external incursion, intimidation or attempted invasion of our political space by centrifugal forces that do not wish us well.

“We equally pledge ourselves to resisting all real or imagined threats to the hard-earned peace, tranquility and security that currently exist in our one and only Rivers State.

“We will not allow arsonists to offer to man our fire service department; neither will we allow those who have made their own states ungovernable and uninhabitable to import their programmed disorder into the serene borders of Rivers State,” the group said.