Victor Ezeja
AdminIn his first public comment on the feud between him and his estranged political godson after President Bola Tinubu’s Aso Villa parley, the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nyesom Wike, has blamed the Rivers State Governor, Siminalayi Fubara for the escalation of their political differences.
Revealing that Tinubu had initially tried to settle their rift at a private meeting, Wike claimed that Fubara defaulted on resolutions reached at that exclusive parley that predated the eight-point agreement from the reconciliatory meeting that involved the larger stakeholders from Rivers State.
The ex-Rivers governor, who spoke in Port Harcourt on Sunday during a thanksgiving ceremony in honour of the immediate past Commissioner for Works in Rivers, George Kelly Alabo, said, “Some of you do not even know that Mr President had invited us privately.
“Do this, do this, do this, do this’. And you agreed before Mr President and you did not do it? And Mr President said, ‘Okay, let the larger state come’. We must allow our people the simple things. I’ve done my own part and I’m happy and I’m doing well in Abuja too.
“So, all of us should love this state but leave this propaganda, leave blackmail. There’s nothing I’m looking for in this state now. I have my own budget as FCT minister.
“It’s like a governor of a state. I have my own commissioners. By January, I present my budget before the National Assembly. I will preside over the expenditure. All I’m saying is if you’re a politician, play according to the rules.”
Wike went on to lampoon elders of the state who have been faulting Tinubu for wading into the Rivers political crisis, saying: “Let me tell the church, you know blackmail is the easiest thing. So many of you may believe what is going on; so many of you may also follow on the road without knowing where you are heading.
“If I were you, (I would) sit down and ask myself: can this be true? But just because we are no longer in power you may want to believe everything they have said. Power and money, if you are not careful, can destroy you. It can also make (you), depending on how you handle it.”
“Don’t get involved in any fight between two politicians without knowing the root cause. In any facet of life, there are rules and they must be obeyed. As a pastor, there are rules you must follow. So also, as politicians, we must follow rules.
“While I was governor I followed those rules, and that’s why I was able to succeed. When I was running for governor, I was invited (and told) that some elders wanted to see me. When I got there, I saw only two people; just two of them constituted themselves as elders over the whole state.
“They said the elders of the state had decided that I should not contest the election. I said it must be a joke. Now they’ve come back again as elders. Check everyone there, some of them their sons lost the election. Everybody wants to take their pound of flesh. ‘Wike prevented me from this’; ‘Wike made me not to be that’. ‘Wike made me not to be that’. Even those that Wike made have joined them.”
Follow Us