Tuesday, 19th March 2024
To guardian.ng
Search

Wike, APC bicker over stakeholders’ meeting with Osinbajo

By Kelvin Ebiri and Ann Godwin (Port Harcourt)
15 February 2017   |   4:18 am
Rivers State Governor Nyesom Wike has described a stakeholders meeting between Acting President Yemi Osinbajo and All Progressives Congress (APC) stalwarts, during his Monday visit to the state as diversionary.

Vice President Yemi Osinbajo (left);  Rivers State Governor Nyesom Wike; and Imo State Governor Rochas Okorocha during the launch of the clean-up of Ogoni land by the Vice President  PHOTO: GOVERNMENT HOUSE

Rivers State Governor Nyesom Wike has described a stakeholders meeting between Acting President Yemi Osinbajo and All Progressives Congress (APC) stalwarts, during his Monday visit to the state as diversionary.

It would be recalled that Osinbajo had held a stakeholders meeting at Government House, Port Harcourt, in continuation of efforts to find lasting peace in the Niger Delta.

The Guardian gathered that the second stakeholders meeting, which held at Aztech Arcum, Port Harcourt, was organised by members of APC in the state, who alleged that they were denied access to the meeting at Government House.

Osinbajo at the meeting urged the APC members to persevere as opposition.He said: “For many of you this is the first time you are in opposition. I tell my friend, the Minister of Transport, Chibuike Amaechi, that this is the first time he is in the opposition. In Lagos, we were in opposition for 16 years. I know how the suffering of being in opposition is. But weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning. The morning of APC in the state will soon come.”

The Director General of Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), Dakuku Peterside said: “the politicisation of the people’s struggle is a major roadblock to actualization of Niger Delta Development.”

According to him, Rivers stakeholders were excluded from the meeting that took place in Government House.Senator Magnus Abe representing Rivers South East also said: “As a senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, I did not receive an invitation to the meeting at Government House, Port Harcourt,” he alleged.

However, Governor Wike described those who convinced the acting president to hold a separate stakeholders meeting with mainly APC members as chameleons and agents of satan trying to cause confusion.

Wike said: “You are aware that the Acting President came and this is the only state he slept because he was very relaxed as we are peaceful, satan will never sleep, it is always at work.

“The acting president came and had meeting with various stakeholders at Government House. Amaechi was there. But, there would always be a chameleon, trying to cause confusion. They persuaded Osinbajo that there was need to talk with the APC. You know he is an APC man, but governance is governance. He went for the meeting and the party people turned around and said the meeting was the stakeholders meeting, not an APC meeting.

“The acting president, however, said it clearly at the meeting that he came to see his APC family, so what happened there was a party affair, not the Rivers State stakeholders meeting.

In this article

0 Comments