In Rivers, APC woos Wike, offers him party’s leadership

The FCT Minister, Nyesom Wike, is the target of the All Progressives Congress (APC), which has stated that it is continuously courting him to join the party and that he will become the party’s leader in Rivers State if he accepts.
After losing the party’s primary election for the presidential ticket to former Vice President Atiku Abubakar in 2023, Wike, the state’s most recent governor, was said to be at odds with the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), despite his insistence that he is still a member of the organization.

The State House of Assembly became polarized and 27 of his (Wike’s) supporters eventually defected to the APC as a result of a recent cold war between him and Siminalayi Fubara, his political godson and the current governor of the state.

The Rivers State chapter of the APC, however, claimed that the developments proved the peace talks President Bola Tinubu had sparked between Wike and Fubara had collapsed with the declaration on Wednesday of the 27 lawmakers’ seats as vacant by the court-recognized Speaker of the House, Edison Ehie, a staunch supporter of Fubara.

Yesterday, following his meeting with the National Working Committee (NWC) at the APC national secretariat in Abuja, Tony Okocha, the chairman of the APC caretaker committee in the state, revealed this while updating reporters on the latest events in the state.

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“Wike is going to be the party leader in the state when he comes, and we want the APC to win Rivers this time,” he declared.
I wasn’t part of it, but whatever that was, it has broken down, and it has broken irreconcilably, Okocha remarked in response to a query regarding the recently reported Tinubu intervention.
Additionally, Okocha said that it was unconstitutional for the four state assembly members to have approved the budget for the 2024 fiscal year without the participation of the 27 members who had recently defected to the APC.

A series of constitutional violations have led Okocha to say that the party’s lawmakers in the state House of Assembly were thinking of starting the impeachment process against Governor Fubara.

“The process of impeachment is democratic, even though I do not sit on the state House of Assembly.” According to him, impeachment is not a coup.

Regarding the state House of Assembly complex’s demolition, Okocha declared that the APC will not permit illicit activity to flourish in the state. He went on to say that as long as the MPs carrying the mace—a symbol of authority—would be there, they would continue to assemble in other locations. As an added note, let me tell you that an assembly is made up of people, not just a structure.

Therefore, as long as the mace—which serves as the assembly’s emblem of authority—is present, it can be held wherever. About 27 members convened as of yesterday to make significant choices about state affairs, the speaker stated.