Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike has said the declaration by ex-Niger Delta militant, Asari Dokubo, that he leads the new Biafra Defacto Customary Government is a ruse because he(Asari) is not Igbo.
Wike, during an interview on Wednesday night, said the ex-agitator is trying to gain publicity, adding that Nigerians are trying to give publicity to things that do not matter.
“I have not responded to Asari because I don’t want to give him publicity. Let us see the people he has. There are issues that I don’t want to discuss and Asari is one of them. Asari works for the government today, tomorrow he comes and abuses the federal government.
“He accused me and my ethnic group that we are Igbos, that we do not have oil wells. He is Ijaw, Ijaw is not Igbo, how will he claim what is for the Igbos”.
On the approval of the federal executive council for the rehabilitation of the Port Harcourt refinery with the sum of $1.5 billion, Wike wondered why the approval was given a few years before the crucial 2023 election.
He however said he was not going to rejoice about the approval but will wait to see it work.
If the refinery works, he said, it will improve the economy of the state “but we’re not going to rejoice. We will watch and see. We have had a lot of promises but nothing has happened. We will hold the minister of petroleum accountable. This is 2021, so many promises will be made, so many approvals will be made.
“The APC made so many promises. The same thing happened in Ogoni clean up. Why did the government wait till now till they gave the approval?”
On his verbal attacks on the minister of Niger Delta affairs, Godswill Akpabio, the governor said Akpabio also received 13 per cent derivation while he was governor.
He said Akpabio has no right to ask him what he has done with the 13 per cent derivatives, adding that only Rivers people have the right to ask him to account for how their money was spent.
According to him, no governor has equalled what we did in the South-South.
On security, he said he has told the federal government that as long as they politicise the issue of security, it will not get it right. They go and say they killed 300 bandits but no one will see it.
He said: “Federal government never supported me in the fight against insecurity. They said I was the one responsible for the kidnapping and killing of APC members. They never came to my aide. We surrendered ourselves to god and he heard our prayers”.
Wike who said the federal government is not sincere about fighting insecurity added that the multiple kidnapping in Kaduna and Zamfara shows that the security architecture has broken down.
