By Olusegun Olanrewaju
Following the misunderstanding between Edo State Governor, Godwin Obaseki, and his Rivers State counterpart, Nyesom Wike, a northern group, Arewa Political Advocates (APA), yesterday said even though the latter has not declared his intention, he has every right to run for the presidency in 2023.
In a statement by its coordinator, Abubakar Yewa, APA added, “We also want to use this medium to caution politicians, especially those in the PDP, who have now become rumour mongers, that the PDP has not made any pronouncement about the presidency yet, and it is unfortunate and tragic for our political experience for a governor to take out a full-page press release, published in national newspapers, to accuse and allege that another governor has presidential ambition.
“This is how low some of our leaders and politicians have fallen and it is very sad indeed.”
Referring to a write up entitled: “A Text of Press Conference Convened By Northern Alliance for National Cohesion, on the Inflammatory Remarks of Governor Nyesom Wike, APA noted that, “in fact, Governor Wike has made his position on contesting for the presidency very clear and consistent on national television and elsewhere, which is that, while he has every constitutional right to contest for the position of the presidency if he so desires.
“He is, however, busy with delivering good governance and the dividends of democracy to his people of Rivers State as he winds down to the completion of his mandatory two terms as Governor of Rivers State.”
The group said while it recognises the fact that what is playing out between Obaseki and Wike was provoked by the Edo State Deputy Governor, Philip Shaibu, “in his own disrespectful, unguarded, combative and confrontational comments,” it was disturbed over the activities of interlopers in the matter.
“But we are very much disturbed by the involvement of meddlesome interlopers and anti-progressive groups, comprised mostly of faceless individuals, who cry more than the bereaved and have no stake whatsoever, except for their nuisance value and proclivity to offer themselves as agents of destabilization, destruction, and disunity in Nigeria,” the group said.
The APA acknowledged the role Wike played in ensuring that Obaseki and his deputy did not only join the PDP when they had a crisis in the All Progressives Congress (APC) but ensured that they won the September 19, 2020 governorship election in Edo State.
Cautioning politicians on the type and manner of groups and individuals they choose to ‘engage and procure to ventilate their public advocacy’, the group said “some of these so-called groups may be made up of terrorists, militants, and other nefarious and unscrupulous entities masquerading as social crusaders, but waiting in the wings with malevolent intentions, to unleash mayhem, unrest, and conflict upon and within the polity.”
APA stated that it had noted and appraised the contents of the said press conference, “carefully and in the interest of the peace, cohesion and harmonious coexistence which has existed and continues to exist between us and our brothers in the South-South.”
It further stated that it would “willingly overlook the provocative innuendos, delivered recklessly by paid hackers and rabble-rousers, who are only interested in the pittance they get from those who do not mean well for our country.”
Yewa stated that the group recognised the ‘fact’ that what is playing out between Governor Wike and his Edo State counterpart, “provoked of course by the deputy governor, in his own disrespectful, unguarded, combative and confrontational comments, is purely a political matter by politicians, which will eventually be settled with their usual political solutions.”
Gunmen kill DPO, others in Niger
He, however, added that the group was ‘very much disturbed by what it called “the involvement of meddlesome interlopers and anti-progressive groups, comprised mostly of faceless individuals, who cry more than the bereaved and have no stake whatsoever, except for their nuisance value and proclivity to offer themselves as agents of destabilisation, destruction, and disunity in Nigeria”.
APA added that these “fractious, wilful and intractable groups have nothing to lose, from the consequences of their unguarded, infantile and myopic utterances, except the perverse joy they derive from celebrating the whatever negative gains accruing from their contractual intrusion at the expense of the rest of unsuspecting, innocent Nigerians.
It commended what it called the fearless, bold, determined, courageous, consistent and admirable public advocacy of Wike, “which has without any doubts whatsoever, transformed him into a champion of the Nigerian masses, a voice for the long-suffering common man and a true leader of the ordinary citizens of this country, who continue to suffer under the very suffocating and unbearable situation, which are getting worse with each passing day.”
