2015: Group Tells PDP To Caution Wike …APC Dismisses Minister’s Ambition As Pipe Dream

A group, Rivers PDP Third Force, has urged President Goodluck Jonathan and the National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, Adamu Mu’azu, to call the Minister of State for Education, Nyesom Wike, to order over his utterances on the forthcoming governorship election in the state.
The group kicked against Wike’s claim that he remained the only politician that could win the 2015 election, insisting that the minister must be stopped from contesting the poll.
The minister had, during an interaction with journalists in Port Harcourt, the state capital, boasted that he would win the 2015 governorship election, if he decided to join the race.
A statement by the Secretary-General of the socio-political group, Mr. Oprite Amachree, said posterity would hold the PDP national leaders accountable, should Wike be allowed to breach the political order in the state, since he (Wike) came from Ikwerre, the same area with the incumbent governor.
The group said, “We urge the National Leader of the PDP, President Goodluck Jonathan and the PDP National Chairman, Alhaji Adamu Mu’azu, to be wary of the new seed of destruction in PDP (Nyesom Wike), who has clearly shown, with his utterances and unrestrained ambitions, that he cannot be tamed.
“They (PDP leadership) must put an end to this endless hair-splitting in Rivers PDP and stop Wike from his inordinate ambition. Otherwise, posterity will hold them accountable for any political disorder that arises from Wike’s ambitions.
“As fathers of our great party, they ought to play their role when it matters most. We disagree with the views expressed by the minister on the Rivers PDP gubernatorial ticket, where he stated that he is the only person in the Rivers PDP and that there are no known or notable politicians of Rivers extraction who could deliver for the PDP, if given the mandate.
“We believe that his statement is in very bad taste, as it seeks to denigrate the entire members of our great party. This hegemonic stranglehold over the Rivers PDP portrayed by the Minister of State for Education has led to a breach in the ranks of the party,” the body said.
Meanwhile,  Rivers State Chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has dismissed as a pipe dream, the ambition of Minister of State, Chief Nyesom Wike, to rule the state, predicting that he will meet his political waterloo during the 2015 governorship election.
“We have noted Wike’s boast that he will beat other candidates even in their wards during the governorship election. This is nothing but the blowing of hot air by a political Lilliput who seems to have forgotten how he achieved the little relevance that is now intoxicating him,” Rivers APC Chairman, Dr. Davies Ibiamu Ikanya, said yesterday in Port Harcourt, the state capital.
Ikanya, in a statement signed by his Senior Media Aide, Chie Eze Chukwuemeka Eze, reminded Wike that he owes his position as a junior minister to the Rivers State APC Leader, Governor Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi.
“The same Amaechi that made him will politically un-make him during the 2015 governorship elections. Wike is living in the past as those that made him think that he is nobody politically. We know his tricks and know how to cage him when necessary, so, without us, he is nobody politically in Rivers State.
Wike is the easiest candidate for us to beat and that was why we fasted for him to emerge as the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate for the election. We are continuing in prayer along this line. The thrashing that Wike and the PDP will receive from APC during the election will be so heavy that he may be forced to consider premature retirement from politics,” Ikanya said.
Wike, according to the Rivers APC chairman, has a lot of factors counting against him.
“One of these disadvantages is that he is from the Ikwerre axis; the fact remains that no son or daughter of Ikwerre will succeed Amaechi who is from Ikwerre, and would have governed Rivers for eight years by May 2015. So, that rules him out,” Ikanya said.
He added: “Wike has publicly boasted that all the primary and secondary schools Amaechi has built do not exist in any other part of Rivers State apart from Port Harcourt. In other words, if he is elected (but God forbid!) he is capable of bulldozing the 23 model secondary schools and 300 model primary schools scattered in the other local government areas of the State, sparing, may be, only those in Port Harcourt.
Will Rivers people take such a risk with somebody whose only achievement as acting minister of education was to ensure that our universities were closed for over six months while the polytechnics and colleges of education were closed for about one year? The answer is No. Wike should stop wasting his time because he obviously does not have what it takes to govern Rivers State”, the APC chairman said.

L-R:President, Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), Mohammed Garba, Rivers Commissioner for Information and Communications, Mrs Ibim Sementari and Chairman, Nigeria Union of Journalists, Rivers Council, Mr Opaka Dokubo, during the burial of former President of NUJ, Mr Ndagene Akwu in Port Harcourt, last Saturday