Governor Wike

Okafor Ofiebor/Port Harcourt

The Rivers State Chapter of All Progressives Congress, APC, has described as “highly incendiary” remarks  by Gov. Nyesom Wike last Sunday while speaking at St. Thomas’ Anglican Church, Diobu, Port Harcourt during a thanksgiving service in which the governor swore to die in 2019 instead the opposition party to win in the State.

In a statement signed by its Publicity Secretary, Chris Finebone, said APC said that it finds the governor’s statement as extremely unbefitting and grossly demeaning to the high office of governor of a state and a reminder that he is an unrepentant believer in violent politics.

The Party also said by the statement, the Governor appeared to be heading back to “his old path of threat, incitement and sabre-rattling as a political ideology”

APC reminded the governor that “Rivers people have had enough humiliation in the eyes of Nigerians who now believe that all Rivers people are so uncouth and indecorous with words and in behaviour.

“The people of Rivers State would prefer their governor to show the exemplary carriage exhibited by past governors of the State that endeared them and Rivers people to Nigerians and the world. Gov. Wike should realise that it behoves on him to be the best example of who Rivers people are and not the present decrepit, bizarre and disgraceful impression he presents especially in his public utterances.

“By declaring to die than to allow APC win Rivers State in 2019, Gov. Wike has made sufficient declaration of electoral ‘do or die’ war. The governor obviously has crossed the red line between politics of decency and moral high ground and that of thuggery and bestiality. The declaration is manifestly anti-democratic and assaults the sensibilities of decent people.

“Clearly, Gov. Wike has demonstrated that the only language of politics he understands is violence and killing hence his unrestrained use of the word “die” in most of his statements concerning elections. He is known for threatening death to electoral officials and every other person, sadly, he has now promised death to himself. But by all means, the APC honestly wants Gov. Wike alive and well.

“Gov. Nyesom Wike that, God willing, the APC will win Rivers State resoundingly come 2019 and the governor will remain alive to experience what is called governance and not the tokenism he is offering Rivers people now. The governor will live to witness a government that will undertake visionary projects based on budgets that will be made public as against the present mafia-style government of his where everything, including the state budget, is patently secret.”

The APC advised Gov. Wike to make conscious efforts to understand that if he replaces ‘death’ with ‘life’ in his statements, his associates and others may change their perception of politics as a ‘do or die’ thing and this will possibly stem the heightened killings and beheadings that have become the order of the day in Rivers State since 2015 when he was sworn in as governor.