Allow APC choose National Assembly leadership, Wike tells opposition 

Warns against alleged plot to impose Melaye as Kogi guber candidate

Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike, has urged opposition parties to allow the All Progressives Congress (APC) leadership to choose the leadership of the National Assembly because  it is their entitlement.

He urged the minority in both chambers of the National Assembly to form a robust opposition to challenge the ruling party.

Wike, who spoke during an interview in Port Harcourt, yesterday, said Rivers State lawmakers would not be part of such disruptive scheme.

He said though he is not a member of APC, prominent members of the party interested in the office of the Senate President and Speaker of the House of Representatives have reached out to him to indicate their interest.

“People have come to see me. Wase Ahmed Idris has come, Godswill Akpabio has come, David Umahi has come, Uzor Kalu has called me on phone from U.S severally. And what am I saying? I’m not from their party, but first of all, democracy entails that the majority should have their way.

“I have been hearing and reading where people are saying that the opposition parties are meeting to take over the leadership of the National Assembly. They won’t take it, it’s not possible. Even me, I will not support that.

“I will not support that kind of move where you want to takeover the leadership of the National Assembly as an opposition, I won’t do that. There are so many selfish politicians, I’m not one of them.”

He, however, advised the national leadership of the APC to consider the diversity and complexity of the Nigerian State in determining its preferred candidates for the offices of the Senate president and Speaker of the House of Representatives.

On the crisis in the PDP, Wike said the devastating defeat of the party in the just concluded general election is a pointer that the suspended national Chairman, Dr. Iyorchia Ayu, really had no electoral value.

According to him, the G-5 governors agitation for rotation of elective and appointive offices based on the principle fairness, equity and justice helped to expose this salient fact about Dr. Ayu.

“We have exposed Ayu that he has nothing to offer the party. And from the results, it has shown that he has nothing to offer to the party,” he said.

Wike said the acting national Chairman of the PDP, Umar Ililya Damagum, recently called him and expressed concern about attempt to manipulate the Kogi State governorship primary in favour of Senator Dino Melaye.

“Changing delegates list to favour a particular person will further cause crisis in our party. Giving PDP governorship ticket in Kogi State to Dino Melaye is like planning to fail the election, because Dino doesn’t have what it takes to become governor of Kogi State.

“Tomorrow you begin to cry that you were rigged, but you’re already rigging yourself by changing the delegates list to favour someone who cannot win election.”

On the on going protest by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) at Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) office in Port Harcourt, Wike said the protest was aimed at preventing the manipulation of the results of the  governorship and House of Assembly elections.

The governor noted that since the law allows political parties to access electoral materials INEC used in conducting the elections, the PDP in the state as a precautionary measure, is insisting on every party having access to the documents at the same time.

He explained that PDP was simply being proactive to prevent a recurrence of malicious altering of  the will expressed by Rivers people  at the polls in 2015 by the police and the APC.

“There is nothing that is abnormal about what you think is going on in Port Harcourt. What PDP is doing is just to be vigilant. Vigilant in the sense that precisely after the 2015 election, inauguration, we had problems that we never believed, and so we didn’t want a recurrence of that at the tribunal.”