Southerners under the aegis of Southern Nigeria Peoples Assembly (SNPA) has lampooned the former governor of Niger State, Babangida Aliyu, over his recent comments on Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike, over the choice of PDP vice presidential candidate.
The group said Aliyu comment that Wike allegedly lost the vice presidential ticket for lack of capacity, character and temperament, was not statesmanly.
In a statement in Port Harcourt, SNPA leader, Livingstone Wechie, described the comments credited to the former governor as unsalutary and untoward.
According to him, “The outburst and ungraceful cum uncomplimentary remarks by former governor of Niger State against Governor Wike of Rivers State is highly unsalutary and untoward.
“As a matter of fact, his view of Wike, an illustrious and highly celebrated Ikwerre son, is an affront not only to his ethnicity and region but the Nigerian state, particularly in the face of the current political and economic disputations and contradictions bedeviling the Nigerian state today.”
The Assembly accused the former governor of attempting to cause disharmony in the party, at a time the PDP is in dire need of fence-mending.
“It is viewed with respect that Aliyu has acted far below dignity with a primordial and archaic sentiment and above all, not statesmanly. His narratives are suspicious, to say the least, curious as it appears to be aimed at fuelling crisis and fanning the embers of avoidable conflict within the ranks of PDP at a time the party should be mending walls and beg for peace after a fierce and sharp contest which shook the political atmosphere almost to a negative trajectory.
“In all modesty, between a Wike and an Aliyu in the circumstance, who should be speaking of capacity, temperament or political character? The records of political profile between both figures are extremely apart as a Wike has built unsurpassable political clout that dwarfs everything Aliyu represents and this is not in dispute.
“Governor Wike, in his capacity, is in a class of his own as the lawyers will say, sui generis. His marks must be kept close to the chest drawing from the lessons of Donald Trump’s political pedigree in the United States of America, whose feat continues to hunt American politics because of his background of not being among the ruling family or class, yet took America by storm in such unwavering propensity.
It is on record that Aliyu in 2015, as an incumbent, failed to produce a successor as Niger State governor, which candidate he allegedly foisted on the PDP and went on to lose both the governorship seat to the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC), as well as his own senatorial election as a seating governor and this is quite humiliating,” the statemendadded.
