APC attacks Wike for allegedly asking Osinbajo to inaugurate motor park, market stalls

The Rivers State branch of the All Progressives Congress, APC, has attacked the state governor, Nyesom Wike, for allegedly asking the Acting President, Yemi Osinbajo, to inaugurate a motor park and a market said to have been newly built in the state by the state government.

Mr Osinbajo visited the state Thursday to inaugurate a $1.5 billion fertilizer plant built by Indorama Eleme Fertilizer and Chemicals Limited in Port Harcourt.

The APC said as soon as Mr. Osinbajo departed the state Mr. Wike publicly accused the party leaders of preventing the acting president from inaugurating some projects undertaken by the state government.

“The governor should understand that no President in Nigeria goes about commissioning local government projects such as markets and garages,” the APC spokesperson in the state, Chris Finebone, said in a statement he issued on Friday.

“The Acting President, pressed for time, managed to commission the only two road projects that appeared to be of some significance – the Chokocho-Igbo-Etche- Rumuokurushi Road and Chokocho-Umuechem-Ozuzu Road,” Mr Finebone said.

“We expect Gov. Wike to show appreciation that the Acting President squeezed in the commissioning of those two projects into his very tight schedule and not accuse the Ag. President and APC of playing politics.

“If anyone played politics over the visit, it was Gov. Nyesom Wike.

“We urge him to take the advice of the Acting President that public office holders should pay more attention to governance than playing politics. The governor should have cleared the projects he wanted commissioned with the office of the Acting President prior to commencing his media propaganda instead he put the cart before the horse.”

PREMIUM TIMES couldn’t reach the Rivers State government for their response on the issue.

The government does not have a spokesperson since the then Commissioner for Information in the state, Austin Tam-George, resigned his appointment in June.

PREMIUM TIMES made effort to reach the Special Assistant to the governor on Electronic Media, Simeon Nwakaudu, but he didn’t pick his calls or respond to a text message sent to his phone.

The state’s governing Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, however, alleged that there was an attempt by the APC to stop Mr. Osinbajo from visiting the state.

Felix Obuah, the PDP Chairman in the state, said prior to Mr. Osinbajo’s visit, the APC placed adverts in some national daily papers persuading the acting president to put off the visit.

Their intention, Mr. Obuah said, was to ridicule the state, “but were shamefully ignored by the Acting President”.

“The Acting President being a better educated, more exposed, and of superior class than the charlatans in APC could not have been swayed from honouring Gov Wike’s invitation having been in the State earlier, and amazed by what the Wike administration has been able to achieve in only two years in office, gave him the name ‘Mr Project’,” said Mr. Obuah in a statement issued by media aide, Jerry Needam.

The PDP said noted with regret that rather than invest all the millions of naira into more meaningful ventures or at worse, empower their few surviving ‘living dead’ members, the visionless APC felt the best they could do was to spend the millions of naira on media hype and publicity to misinform a more reasonable Acting President,” Mr. Obuah said.