…Says its not for peace to reign but for return of ‘competence’
Governor Siminalayi Fubara of Rivers State has been told to throw in the towel right away and resign without giving condition.
This was handed down Tuesday, March 12, 2024, by the caretaker committee chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the state, Tony Okocha.
Okocha, s strong ally of the FCT Minister, Nyesom Wike, as well as the Rivers representative on the present board of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), spoke at a crowded press conference at the APC state secretariat on 268B Aba Road.
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Okocha was reacting to the statement credited to Fubara that he was prepared to forgo his seat as governor if that would heal the state of the current political crisis.
Lawmakers backed by his erstwhile political godfather (Wike) had attempted to impeach him one Monday morning, and this led to endless crisis in the past four months.
The Presidency had intervened leading to a peace agreement which many see as an ambush on the governor.
Now, the man seen to lead the Wike charge against the governor says the governor would not be resigning for peace to reign because, according to him, there is no war in Rivers State.
“Fubara is at war with himself. He should resign right away for gross incompetence not because of any war,” he said. He also said that Fubara was simply impeaching himself.
“He is not serving the people of Rivers State. His resignation should not be about ‘if'”.
Okocha, who gave the theme of the anti-Fubara press briefing as ‘Reign of Decrepit Leadership in Rivers State,’ accused Fubara of being rudderless, visionless, and decrepit.
He said the governor achieved nothing in first nine months except the flagoff of the Port Harcourt Ring Road, a project he said was conceptualised in Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi’s first term and dropped up till Wike’s last term in office.
He accused the governor of spending N150m per jamboree in the name of thanksgiving ceremonies in every ward in the state, saying what was needed was one thanksgiving service over the Supreme Court verdict affirming him as governor.
Okocha began his political career as Wike’s special assistant (when he was Obio/Akpor Local Council chairman) and chief of staff to Amaechi (2nd term) as governor, and now back as Wike’s strongest ally in the battles against Amaechi.
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Wike is still officially in the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) but he is seen to be running the APC in his home state using allies led by Okocha after the Amaechi-controlled state executive council (exco) was dissolved when Bola Ahmed Tinubu took over as Nigeria’s President.
Wike was believed to have installed the PDP-led administration with Fubara as the arrowhead before they fell apart, and also won Rivers State for Tinubu.
He was compensated for the feat and thus, all appointments to the Rivers APC went to him and his PDP group who are now crossing over to the APC, to the displacement of most Amaechi and Magnus Abe supporters.
What appears to be the most important project to the Wike camp in Rivers State seems to be to remove Fubara. The governor thus, threatened to resign if the pressure continued.
Now, the APC leadership in the state has asked Governor Fubara to make haste and resign. Okocha rejected Fubara’s claim that he the governor enjoyed ‘organic support’ in Rivers State.
He rather said the governor was always seeking revalidation. He challenged the governor to prove that the women and all those who attend the thanksgiving events around the state paid for the caps they wore, and paid for transport to come and go.
The APC caretaker boss said he once served as chief of staff in Government House and knew how such things were sponsored.
“Nobody is in government to spend his own money but to grab as much as possible. It is never true that it is not government money that is bankrolling these jamborees. Each takes not less than N150m.”
He further said that the governor was not fighting an election but was not doing anything to bring prosperity to the state.
He pointed to states such as Niger and Lagos where he said many projects and activities were going on.
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He also said that Tinubu was not the cause of the crisis in the land and that subsidy removal had brought huge windfalls to each state every month through allocation.
“It is up to each state governor to use the increased funds to create wealth and fight hunger in their states,” he said.
