Abe explains why he didn’t sue Wike over N4bn embezzlement accusation

Former senator, who represented Rivers South East Senatorial District from 2011 to 2015, Magnus Abe, has explained why he decided not to sue Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers State for accusing him of embezzling N4bn meant for road construction in the state.

Abe said Wike’s accusations were part of political campaigns, adding that he had long cleared the air and proven his innocence in the accusations and even made peace with Wike to engender the development and growth of the state.

Recall that Wike in September 2016, during the groundbreaking of the construction of a road in Bodo City in Gokana Council of Rivers State, accused Abe of abandoning the Kpobie-Bodo road project after allegedly collecting over N4bn to complete the project.

But the former senator, while responding to a question from one of the youths and young professionals he had an interactive session with in Port Harcourt at the weekend, explained that a sustained tearing down of political contemporaries and enemies over politics would only hamper the growth of the state.

He said: “Nyesom Wike is my friend. That time that he made that video we were campaigning, he went to Gokana to campaign for his party and he made those accusations there. I went to Ikwerre to go and reply him and we attacked ourselves.

“We don’t go to court over such things. When we finished that elections, during the thanksgiving service, I invited him, he came and he said that he fought me, we have forgotten about that and that is now in the past.

“If we continue to tear each other down endlessly over politics, the society cannot move forward. So people should just go and rest, I’m not suing Wike, I’m not fighting him, I’m not quarrelling with him. In the course of our politics, if we disagree, we will disagree, that is what it is, so just forgot it.”

Abe, however, urged youths and young professionals in the state to focus on experienced people who have been there, stressing that he had garnered experience from the successes and failures recorded in the state since 1999.

He said: “I did not come here today to lecture the youths of Rivers State that I have all the answers to whatever challenges that our state is facing. Or to pretend that somehow, I am not part of whatever may have been the mistakes on the issues of governance in our state in the past. I am part of whatever success we have had in the state because I have been in Rivers State politics from 1998 until now. And I am also part of whatever failures that we may have had. But in the course of whatever success and failure that we have put together, we have also acquired experience, we have better ideas, we know the things that did not work and cannot work, and we know the things that will work and can be made better.”

Reading a communiqué on behalf of the youths and young professionals, the Executive Director, Magioni Environmental Safety Company, David Makama urged Abe to run for governorship in 2023.

He said: “We’ve all seen your capacity, sagacity, exposure, doggedness politically, and the unparalleled love and followership you have earned in Rivers State and beyond. We humbly unequivocally request that you present yourself for the gubernatorial election in Rivers State come 2023, your timely response is hereby anticipated given the immediate paragraph above as we serve you notice that we will not accept no for an answer.”