Group urges Gov. Wike to face governance

By Stanley Onyekwere

Rivers Progressive Council (RPC) has implored the state governor, Nyesom Wike to face business of governance, and stop making utterances that add no value to the state.
The group said Wike’s recent incendiary comments following the general elections were unbecoming of a leader.
RPC President, Tony Chris, in a statement was reacting to the recent war of words between Governor Wike and the Army over the a purported claim of oil bunkering by the General Officer Commanding 6 Division of the Nigerian Army.
The group alleged that Wike’s cantankerous behaviour on his part made it impossible for Rivers State people to productively and effectively review his first term performance while setting agenda for his second term and that is assuming the Election Petition Tribunal and the judiciary as a whole allow him to cling onto the people’s mandate.
The statement reads: “We have news for the governor. Irrespective of his heating up the polity in Rivers state, we shall continue to fine-tune modalities for holding him to account, even more so in his second term, for which his mandate remains contentious.
“At no time shall we allow his resort to verbally abusing others scare us from performing the sacred duty we owe to ourselves individually as leaders in our communities to hold those in position of authority to account.
“We therefore unequivocally disown Governor Wike’s comments against the Army, the Federal Government and politicians from other parts of the country that have been victims of Wike’s tantrums.
“We want to categorically state that the views and claims he has expressed or made about these persons and institutions are private to him and in no way represent the high esteem in which Riverians hold the Nigerian Army and politicians of other ethnic nationalities; Rivers state is also unquestionably loyal to Nigeria.
“We use this opportunity to reassure the Army that it has the backing of the people especially as it will soon have to curtail the activities of those threatening to declare a Niger Delta Republic on June 1; these urchins are acting at the behest of top politicians from the region and do not represent the desire of the peace loving people of Rivers state.”