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Minister of State for Education, Chief Nyesom Wike |
* House leader tells minister to stop playing demi-god
By Ernest Chinwo
The Chief of Staff, Government House, Port Harcourt, Rivers
State, Chief Tony Okocha, has stated that the Minister of State for Education,
Chief Nyesom Wike, did not make Chibuike Amaechi governor of the state.
Leader of the state House of Assembly, Mr. Chidi Lloyd, also
called on the minister not to arrogate to himself the role of a demigod in the
emergence of Amaechi as governor.
They spoke Monday in reaction to reports published over the
weekend, that the minister claimed that he made Amaechi governor in 2007, after
smuggling him into the country from Ghana where he (Amaechi) had taken refuge,
while his matter was being heard in court.
Okocha stated that the minister was still chairman of
Obio/Akpor local government area at the time former Governor Peter Odili,
endorsed Amaechi as his successor.
He said: “I am not aware that Wike was the God that decided
Amaechi’s fate. I am not aware that Dr. Peter Odili, then governor of Rivers
State, consulted with Wike, when he endorsed Amaechi as his successor.
“I am equally not aware that Wike was a member of the Rivers
State House of Assembly which refused and resisted entreaties and overtures to
impeach the then Speaker Amaechi, when he was away in Ghana, an exercise which
could have scuttled his chances of becoming governor.
Or was Wike playing God, who has power to make all things
possible?
“Could he be implying that the learned justices of the
Supreme Court who interpreted the law and delivered judgment were tied to his
apron string? This is blackmail.
“I am not aware that Wike was a Customs, Police, Military,
or Immigration officer, to be able to smuggle in Amaechi, except by any uncanny
route into Abuja in the night and make him governor the following morning.
“I am aware that before Amaechi left for Ghana, he had
briefed his lawyers to challenge the denial of his mandate in court. I am
equally aware that the lawyers filed all the papers and presented the arguments
before the Court.”
He noted that while Wike was involved in the process, there
were several other supporters who played different roles in the bid to realise
the governor’s mandate.
His words: “I am aware that there was a preponderance of
supporters who ran different errands for the success of Amaechi’s emergence. I
am aware that some supporters embarked on prayers and fasting. Each of them
suffered one discomfort or had one gory experience or the other.
“I must observe here that Chief Nyesom Wike, then local
government chairman, played out his role religiously during the period of the
struggle. He could not have been alone in that herculean task that would earn
him the alpha and omega status that he arrogates himself.”
In his own reaction, Lloyd, said: “It is important that
people should remind Wike that that it takes God to make somebody a governor.
“Given that Wike had played one role or the other, as at the
last time I checked, he was not in the Rivers State House of Assembly as at
then and Amaechi needed to conclude his tenure as Speaker of the House to be
eligible to contest for any other office and when I look round, at that period,
I didn’t see Wike.
“So, Amaechi became governor first by the grace of God and
secondly, by everybody, who contributed through one movement or the other.
“The governorship of Rotimi is beyond all understanding
because every effort by man had failed. It is important that Wike should not
arrogate this new role of demigod to himself, which he is trying to play in
Rivers State.
“He may have done one thing or the other to assist in the
emergence of Rotimi as governor of Rivers State and I see that as a pay-back
for Rotimi because when the whole of Obio/Akpor, in his (Wike’s) second tenure
said, he will not go, this man (Amaechi) pleaded with all the stakeholders in
Obio/Akpor to allow him run for a second term. Senator
John Mbata is alive, Dr. Peter Odili, who they have carried
to Aso Rock, is also alive.”
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