The ambition of the Supervising Minister of Education, Nyesom Wike to contest the governorship election in 2015 is widening the gulf in the Rivers State chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
The Rivers PDP Third Force Movement, through its General Secretary, Oprite Amachree, yesterday in Port Harcourt, declared that the ruling party would lose Rivers State, if Wike was imposed on the peace-loving people as its standard bearer, with his purported endorsement described as null, void and of no effect whatsoever.
First Lady Dame Patience, an indigene of Okrika, headquarters of Okrika Local Government Area, is pushing for the candidature of Senator George Thompson Sekibo, who represents Rivers East Senatorial District.
Sekibo, who hails from Ogu, headquarters of Ogu/Bolo Local Government Area, also the hometown of the self-acclaimed Speaker of the Rivers House of Assembly, Evans Bipi, is banking on the First Lady’s support, since Okrika and Ogu people speak the same language, but separated by a river.
In the Rivers PDP, besides Wike and Senator Sekibo, the then representative of the Rivers Southeast Senatorial District, Senator Lee Maeba, an Ogoni and former Deputy Speakers of the House of Representatives, Austin Opara and Chibudum Nwuche, among others, are also aspiring to be governor in 2015.
PDP Chairman Felix Obuah prefers Wike, who supported him to emerge as the party’s helmsman, through the judgment of an Abuja High Court of April 15, last year, which the sacked Chairman, Godspower Ake, is challenging at the Court of Appeal.
Wike, who is also the grand patron of the Grassroots Development Initiative (GDI), said through the Secretary-General of the socio-political organisation (GDI), Samuel Nwanosike, who is also the Rivers Publicity Secretary of the PDP, said persons behind the movement were not members of the party, but impostors.
No right-thinking member of the PDP would want to bring the leaders of the party to disrepute, he said, stressing that National Chairman Adamu Muazu had indicated that there would be no imposition of candidates.
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