The Legal Adviser to the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Rivers state, Iheanyi Dike has said that the party is ready to take over power in the state in 2023.
He said that the current government has performed poorly to be re-elected into power in the forthcoming elections.
In an interview with PUNCH, Dike said that the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the state has lost focus, noting that Governor Nyesom Wike “is busy trying to pull the PDP down.”
He said, “We are good to go; we are almost there and we are ready to take over the Brick House. Rivers State is an APC state irrespective of the fact that we have a sitting governor, who is a PDP man. You can see what is happening in Rivers State. The PDP is a divided house. As a matter of fact, the governor has lost focus. So, he is busy trying to pull the PDP down. As for the APC, we are building from the grassroots every day, talking to voters. We are fully ready.”
The legal adviser said that Wike has performed poorly and has failed to develop human capital in the state.
He noted that the governor was only seeking a third term in disguise by “trying to bring one of his stooges” for the 2023 elections.
“It depends on what you call performance. If performance is building flyovers, to me, he has not performed. If performance is buying over all the areas in Port Harcourt, that is not performance. If performance is a situation where there is no employment to deliver to the youth, then I disagree. Wike has not created any reasonable employment anywhere. He has not been able to build one single industry. To me, that is not performance. So, I have not seen what Wike has done to earn him that opportunity for Rivers people to vote for the PDP. Moreover, the election we are talking about is beyond the PDP, it is beyond the political parties. We are looking at the calibre of people carrying this flags. We are talking about the candidate of the APC, Tonye Cole. He is a man full of capacity; he is a man who will be able to build Rivers State. He is a man who will bring in jobs and employment; he is a man full of vision. He is a man who has been in the private sector and he is willing to replicate what he has done there in the state. Rivers people know all the candidates and we are confident that they will choose our candidate. We have the best candidate.
“What Wike is chasing to achieve now is a third term in disguise, which is what he is doing now. He is trying to bring one of his stooges so that he can hide under that umbrella to operate. It is the third term, that is what he is aiming for and Rivers people are rejecting it,” Dike stated.
Speaking on the call to the presidential candidate of the APC, Bola Tinubu, to stop hobnobbing with Governor Wike, Dike said that the development is an insult to APC members in the state, adding that they were not happy and should be apologised to.
According to him, “I was present at the stakeholders’ meeting; I have said it and I will continue to say that we, the people of Rivers State in the APC, demand an apology from Asiwaju Ahmed Tinubu. For him (Tinubu) to come to Rivers State through his handlers and the South-West governors to engage Governor Wike in a meeting is an affront. It is an affront to Rivers people, and Rivers APC members are not happy. This amounts to anti-party activity if no one will caution him; I will say that we are demanding an apology from Ahmed Tinubu, our candidate, and his cohorts to Rivers APC. This is because we have the capacity to win here and we have the capacity to defeat the PDP. So why hobnob with Wike? Rivers People have rejected Wike and that is the truth.”
