RIVERS State governor, Nyesom Wike, has shut down the Atiku/Okowa campaign office in Port Harcourt barely two months to the 2023 polls.
Wike said he evoked Executive Orders 21 and 22 to give legal support to the sealing off of the campaign office.
He also accused two chieftains of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Lee Maeba and Abiye Sekibo, of attemping to instigate violence in the state by deliberately violating a law that prohibits the location of political offices in residential areas.
The governor stated this on Friday, December 23, at the inauguration of the 17.2 kilometres-long Bori-Kono Road in Baen community of Khana Local Government Area of the state.
According to him, “A few days ago, you (Maeba) and Abiye went to Igboukwu Street, D-Line (Port Harcourt) without the approval of the government to site a political office.
“We are talking about Executive Orders 21and 22 that have now been taken over by the law passed by the State House of Assembly. We did not send the chairman of Port Harcourt council to go and bring it (the building) down. We have the power.”
The PDP has been embroiled in internal crisis over failure of the party’s national chairman, Iyorchia Ayu, to resign his position to pave way for a southern candidate for the position.
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Wike and other aggrieved party chieftains insisted that the North had too many important positions in the party, which sidelined the South.
Five aggrieved governors known as the G5 – Wike, Samuel Ortom (Benue), Ifeanyi Ugwanyi (Enugu), Okezie Ikpeazu (Abia) and Seyi Makinde (Oyo) – have refused to work with the PDP’s Atiku/Okowa Presidential Campaign Council (PCC) unless Ayu resigns.
Wike has promised to reveal the presidential candidate he would be mobilising votes for in the 2023 general elections in January 2023.
“So, from January next year, I will campaign to my people on whom to vote for. All of you, who have been in suspense, wait, January is coming. Not only will I tell them where they will vote, I will move from state to state and tell them why they should vote for the people I think they should vote for,” he said.
He added that the 2023 general elections “will also be used to retire some politicians.”
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Sinafi Omanga is a journalist with The ICIR. His Twitter handle is @OmangaSinafi and Email: [email protected]
