Rivers crisis: Wike owns up on plot to remove Gov. Fubara
The Minister of the Federal Capital Territory and the immediate past Governor of Rivers State, Nyesom Wike has agreed to being behind the plot to remove his predecessor from office, Governor Siminalayi Fubara.
Wike, who spoke for the first time since the impeachment plot became public, also said he had the power to stop Fubara from becoming governor if he didn’t want him to succeed him.
Recall that some lawmakers loyal to Wike in the Rivers Assembly had thrown the State into Political crisis as a result of the plot to impeach Fubara on Monday.
It was believed that the lawmakers were acting on behalf of Wike who was silent on the matter until yesterday.
However, while practically owning up to being the brains behind the crises, Wike told a group of South-South leaders at his office in Abuja on Tuesday that he must secure his base to maintain his political relevance.
The former Governor who dismissed the claim that the move against Fubara was motivated by ethnic considerations insisted that he would not allow his political base to be taken away from him as a politician because that would mean he had lost his relevance politically.
He added that he is not losing sleep over what he described as a campaign of calumny against him over the matter.
“All of us want to be politically relevant; all of us want to maintain our political structure,” the minister was quoted as saying during the meeting.
“Is it not my political structure? Will I allow anybody to just cut me out immediately? Everybody has a base. If you take my base, am I not politically irrelevant?”
“In politics, there are a lot of internal wranglings. But to come out and say ‘Oh they want to do this against me, it will not work.
“I had every power then to say where this thing is going. So, when things are wrong, you ask questions”, he said.
He however insisted that the issue is a party affair and would be resolved using the party’s mechanism.
“The party knows how they resolve their problems, it is not an ethnic affair.
“Our party is coming to it, that is what I will say. Every politician has his own interest,” the former governor added.
