* Drama as Shettima asks Fubara to greet Wike in Presidential Villa

Caretaker Chairman, All Progressives Congress (APC), Rivers State chapter, Tony Okocha, has urged Governor Siminalayi Fubara to stop running the state without a budget and obey the peace agreement of President Bola Tinubu by representing the state budget before the state House of Assembly.

 
 Describing the development as a gross financial misconduct by the governor, the APC chieftain accused Fubara of jettisoning an agreement he entered into with the President to represent the budget to a complete House for peace to reign in the state.
  
Okocha offered the advice, yesterday, in Abuja, at an event to discuss the imperative of revisiting the president’s intervention for progress in Rivers State.
  
Okocha, who lamented that the governor was going against the laws of the land by ignoring the state Assembly, regretted that it has got to the point where the Assembly now overrides the governor for declining four important bills passed to him by the lawmakers.
  
He said: “They started it; few of them were running to the President to intervene in the matter. And the President, as busy as his schedules are, called the Rivers people together for a peace meeting. I was there at the meeting with other stakeholders, and the governor agreed to implement all the agreements. Now, the way he rushed to present the budget before four Assembly members, he should also go back and represent the budget before the complete House. It is not a difficult task.

MEANWHILE, there was a mild drama in the Presidential Villa as Vice President Kashim Shettima called Governor Sim Fubara of Rivers State to greet his predecessor and Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nyesom Wike.
   
Shettima made the request during a meeting between governors and President Bola Tinubu at the Presidential Villa, yesterday. Some service chiefs were also in attendance at the meeting.
 
It was gathered that Tinubu summoned the meeting to address the economic hardship and recent upsurge in insecurity in parts of the country. Wike, who is the immediate past Governor of Rivers, has been trying to hold unto the political structure in the state despite being a minister.
 
Despite signing a peace deal brokered by Tinubu, there are indications that Wike and Fubara are engaged in a cold war.  Videos from the meeting showed Shettima urging Fubara, saying: “Your Excellency, please greet the honourable minister.”