Rotimi Chibuike Amaechi, the minister of transportation on Tuesday accused the Governor of Rivers State, Nyesom Wike, of influencing a high court judgment against the All Progressives Congress in the state.
This is as the party’s presidential rally in Rivers State recorded scanty attendance over an earlier ruling of the Supreme Court which struck out the appeals filed by the minister’s faction of the party.
The minister while speaking at the rally in Port Harcourt accused Wike of betraying him after being recommended for a ministerial appointment during the administration of former President Goodluck Jonathan.
Amaechi alleged that the army also attempted to arrest him in 2015 despite having immunity as a sitting governor, adding that he is ready for battle with Wike.
According to him: “Whatever Wike wants on Saturday, we will give him. Whatever the PDP wants in Rivers State, we are equal to the task.
“It’s as simple as that. It gets to a stage where a man must be a man. Your Excellency, I’m not going to Abuja anymore. I am here from today until (Election Day).
“In 2015, the army tried to arrest me as a sitting governor. You have a governor who is busy lobbying us, trying to negotiate with us, ‘Let us give you presidency, you give me governor.’ He is afraid. We will battle him to the last. On Saturday, they should get ready.
“The support we want is that the President should just thank us when we finish. We are ready for them. They used federal and state institutions against us. They kill our people, APC people, every day; cut off their necks every day. The right to choose our leaders to stop the killings — they got a state high court judge to give judgment.”
According to Amaechi, 80 per cent of those who have made successes in Rivers State politics passed through him.
“Wike was my chief of staff. I made him chairman of a local council. I nominated him as a minister. When he saw Goodluck, he betrayed me. I have been betrayed serially, including senators. After you finish helping them, after praying for them, they go and betray you for a pot of porridge. Saturday is our day,” he said.
In his remark, Adams Oshiomole, the party’s national chairman lauded APC supporters for their fighting spirits.
He noted that President Muhammadu Buhari was hurt that there were a lot of efforts to allegedly award elective positions to the Peoples Democratic Party.
He said, “The President was hurt that there is so much effort to award positions without attestations to the PDP.
“In Zamfara State, we are fighting to have the rights of our people to choose who they want; and here in Rivers State, that right seems to have been taken away.
“But our rights could be frozen; it cannot be detained forever.
“There is a saying that you don’t laugh at the crocodile until you are very certain that you have crossed the very last river.
“The PDP may be laughing too early, but they might weep in the end. On Saturday, you know what our task is and I don’t think I need to lecture you about that.”
According to the APC chairman, the APC is committed to justice, fairness and democracy.
He said, “These are tempting moments when men of little hearts would give up as if this is the end of the world.
“Those who may be smiling that they will become what they do not deserve will find that, as they say, the downfall of a man is not the end of his life.
“And those who seem to laugh too early in the morning may end up crying much later in the night, because, in the world that we live in, there can be a huge gap between judgment and justice.”
