President Bola Tinubu has been asked to provide clarification as to why a member of his cabinet and former governor of Rivers State, Nyesom Wike, is interested in retaining party structure despite publicly proclaiming that he would not run against the President in the 2027 presidential election.
Leader of the Pan Niger Delta Forum (PANDEF), Chief Edwin Clark, made the demand on Monday in an open letter to the president where he wondered why Wike who he said had previously attacked the concept of godfatherism when Rotimi Amaechi was the minister of Transportation would seek to indulge in the same act.
Clark warned that if all former state governors behave like Wike by insisting on controlling their successors in office as in the case of his relationship with Governor Siminalayi Fubara, the country would be in trouble.
He therefore urged the President to call the minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) to order.
“So, what purpose are the structures supposed to serve when there is a governor in place? This is a question that he owes you and all Nigerians.
If all governors who as a matter of right, insist on allowing their favoured candidates as successors, insist on controlling them, insist on controlling the State Assemblies, insist on controlling the structure which they left behind, what manner of confusion will we have in Nigeria?”
The foremost South-South leader observed that despite the president’s previous intervention in the Rivers crisis, the FCT minister had continued utterances which suggest that trouble lies ahead.
He said the crisis has been compounded by the defection of 27 members of the state house of assembly from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to the All Progressives Congress (APC).
He urged the President to tell Wike to focus on his office and know that he is just one among a cabinet of 48 persons, saying the country has enough problems which the government must sit down to solve.
