The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Presidential Campaign Council has declared that Rivers State governor, Nyesom Ezenwo Wike, has officially joined the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), following the visit of the APC presidential candidate, Senator Ahmed Bola Tinubu, to the governor at the Government House, Port Harcourt on Wednesday.
Tinubu, who visited Wike after the APC presidential campaign rally at the Yakubu Gowon Stadium, Elekahia, Port Harcourt, was accompanied by his running mate, Senator Kashim Shettima, and APC national chairman, Senator Abdullahi Adamu.
Others were Governors of Lagos, Ebonyi and Kebbi States, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, Dave Umahi and Abubakar Atiku Bagudu, respectively as well as the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Chief Timipre Sylva and former Ekiti State Governor, Kayode Fayemi.
The PDP Presidential Campaign Council in a statement issued in Port Harcourt on Thursday by the Council’s spokesman in the State, Dr. Leloonu Nwibubasa, said Tinubu’s visit, which had Wike’s full cabinet members in attendance, marked the end of all speculations by Nigerians and the governor’s continuous denial of his current political standing.
Nwibubasa said: “Today marked the end of all speculations by Nigerians and hypocritical denials by Governor Nyesom Wike of his current political standing as Wike play host to the APC presidential candidate Bola Ahmed Tinubu in the council chamber of the Rivers State Government House with all members of the Rivers State executive council present.
“This has not only justified the consistent position of the Rivers state Presidential c
Campaigns Council that Governor Wike who has wholly engaged himself in anti party activities, has criminalized the mandate of the People’s Democratic Party who offered him the platform upon which he was elected governor.
“The utterances of Governor Wike in time past against President Buhari’s policies and poor performance in governance and the manner in which the Governor vilified and spoke despicably about Bola Ahmed Tinubu for telling Nigerians that he wants to continue Buhari’s legacy of good works, is diagnostic that he has no single strand of integrity and credibility left in him for turning around not just to embrace but to consummate his marriage to a party he described as Cancer.
“The show of shame is seen to have been ignorantly celebrated by his minions who are all soon to become internally displaced politicians if they don’t return to good reasoning.
“The people of Rivers state would have benefited more if the Five hundred million Naira that was disbursed for the failed mobilization of people to the APC presidential rally was voted into SMEs for wealth and job creation for the surging population of unemployed youths or for the payments of retirees benefits and gratuity.
“It’s now obvious why Governor Wike ran to the courts to seek judicial asylum knowing he was about playing his highly predictable last game of desecrating the mandate of The People’s Democratic Party.
“Governor Wike as a lawyer should know that you can not suspend the hands of justice in perpetuity while you continue to break all known laws that govern a system. The day of reckoning is here. The leadership of the party must act to save what is left of the PDP in Rivers State.”
Meanwhile, speaking during Tinubu’s visit to him at Government House, Port Harcourt, Governor Wike urged the APC presidential candidate, to prevail on the federal government to ensure that 2023 general election is not truncated.
The governor noted that the Central Bank of Nigeria’s flagrant disregard for the Supreme Court ruling on the Naira Swap policy deadline should worry the APC-led federal government, particularly as the 2023 general election draws near.
