Rivers State chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has dismissed as a pipe dream, the speculated ambition of the Minister of State for Education, Chief Nyesome Wike, to become the next governor of the state in 2015.
While the minister has not been categorical with his ambition, he said, in an interview in Port Harcourt, last week that no other person can beat him should he decide to contest the 2015 governorship election.
When asked what gave him the confidence, Wike had said, among others, “this is my game. I have been chairman (local government) since 1999. There is nobody I don’t know in the various wards across the state. You know I headed the campaign committee of Amaechi (Governor Rotimi) in 2011.
“At the appropriate time, we will see. What I am trying to let you know is that no amount of blackmail, no amount of intimidation, if I decide to do something, nobody can stop me from doing it.”
Reacting to Wike’s assertion, however, Rivers State APC chairman, Dr Davies Ikanya, said the minister was only making an empty boast, saying “he will meet his political waterloo during the 2015 governorship election.
“We have noted Wike’s boast that he will beat other candidates even in their wards during the governorship election. This is nothing but the blowing of hot air by a political Lilliput who seems to have forgotten how he achieved the little relevance that is now intoxicating him.”
Ikanya, in a statement signed on his behalf by his media aide, Chief Chukwuemeka Eze, and made available to Naijalog, reminded Wike that he owed his position as a junior minister to the state governor, Honourable Rotimi Amaechi.
“The same Amaechi that made him will politically un-make him during the 2015 governorship elections. Wike is living in the past as those that made him think that he is somebody politically are all now in APC.”
“We know his tricks and know how to cage him when necessary. So, without us he is a nobody politically in Rivers State. Wike is the easiest candidate for us to beat and that was why we fasted for him to emerge as the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate for the election. We are continuing in prayer along this line.
“The thrashing that Wike and the PDP will receive from APC during the election will be so heavy that he may be forced to consider premature retirement from politics,” Ikanya said.