By Olusegun Olanrewaju
Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike, has said that votes of the electorate will count in the 2023 general elections.

He stressed that the days are gone when people ride on the confidence that because they are from a majority tribe, they will always win elections.

In a statement by the Special Assistant on Media to the governor, Kelvin Ebiri, Wike spoke at the inauguration of the Nkpolu-Oroworukwo flyover, the ninth so far constructed and completed by his administration.

The Labour Party presidential candidate, Peter Obi, performed the inauguration in Mile Two Diobu, Port Harcourt yesterday.

The Rivers State governor observed that there are so many people who had left the office for years and have gathered around a political actor in their desperation to force themselves back to power.

“All they want to do is let us get the opportunity to come back to power. Nigerians, we must open our eyes. You (politicians) must sell yourself; this is me. You must not sell yourself, because you belong to a major ethnic group. Every vote in this country will count.

“Time is over when anybody thinks that you can win an election because you’re from so and so place. Nigeria has passed that stage. We want a Nigeria where all of us believe that we are from here. We want a Nigeria that I have hope that I can become anything tomorrow, not because I came from a small place,” he said.

Wike also referred to assurances some political actors made during a town hall meeting where they agreed to implement the restructuring of the country.

The political actors, the governor noted, also condemned the situation where all the service chiefs are people from one section of the country.

The governor wondered why they waited for over seven years, until this political season, to begin to speak out against such sessional appointments of service chiefs.

“Some people come to tell me to support so and so people, and I ask them, do you know him? When I hear people go to town hall meetings and they say all kinds of things they say.

“They said they will implement the restructuring. They will make sure that every zone will have a member of the Security Council. It is not good for one zone to produce all the security chiefs. You see that, but it is good for one zone to occupy all party positions. Do you see how Nigerians are? You see how we are?”

Wike mocked people in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) who are calling for his dismissal from the party.

According to him, those clamouring for his dismissal ironically left the party, frustrated its electoral chances, and made it lose the 2015 election.

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“Those who are threatening me are those who destroyed PDP and made us lose the election in 2015. I stood firm in this party when this party was to die. Peter Obi, you were there at the party then.

“I was the one with my friends who supported this party. Those who left the party are the ones coming to tell me that I want to scatter the party when you (they) have scattered the party and made us lose the election in 2015. Now we are in opposition. Who put us in opposition?”

The governor said that everybody knows that he is not a conman, but a straightforward politician who wants the best for Nigeria.

He commended his guest, Obi for leaving the PDP, amid the frustrations meted at him to pursue his political ambition.

Wike, however, restated his resolve to remain in the PDP, and doggedly fight those he described as vampires, armed robbers, and scavengers.

“I will not leave. I will stay here, I will fight the vampires, I will fight hyenas, I will fight the scavengers. I will not leave this house. I will never allow armed robbers to take over my house. I am going to stay to chase away the armed robbers.”

The governor advised all political parties to obey Executive Orders 22 and 21 issued by him. He insisted that any political party that wants to use the public school for a campaign must obtain permission from the education commissioner.

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*Obi on ‘classmate’

Meanwhile, Obi has said he has people in Rivers State who attended school with him, noting that some people could not identify their classmates when the 2023 general elections reached the horizon.

Obi stated this while speaking at the commissioning of the Nkpolu-Oroworokwo Flyover in Port Harcourt, the state capital, yesterday.

He said, “That’s why we want people to follow us. Everybody knows our age, they know where we are born, they know where we live, and they know the school we attended. We have classmates.

“Dr Peter Odili was my Senior Boy in Secondary School. We couldn’t have played football in CKC without Odili. Any day he is not in the match we’ve lost, so we know. I have people in Rivers state that went to school with me, and some people nobody has seen who went to school with them. So we must say this,” he added.

Wike had invited Obi alongside President Muhammadu Buhari, and Adams Oshiomhole among other prominent members of the opposition parties to commission some projects in the state.