The All Progressives Congress (APC) in Rivers State has described as ridiculous comments by President Goodluck Jonathan and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), that it will lose the state during the 2015 general elections.
Jonathan had, while speaking at the South-South zonal unity rally of the PDP in Benin City, said its party will reclaim Rivers and Edo States from the APC during the 2015 and 2017 elections.
River APC chairman, Dr. Davies Ibiamu Ikanya, in a statement issued in Port Harcourt yesterday, said, “This boast made on Saturday by President Jonathan during PDP’s South-South rally in Benin City, the Edo State capital, is ridiculous because it runs counter to the realities on ground in Rivers State.
“President Jonathan’s boast is obviously based on ignorance about current political realities in Rivers State. He may not have known that the state PDP leader and prospective governorship candidate, junior education minister Nyesom Wike, has polarised PDP in Rivers State to the extent that it cannot even win a councillorship seat in a fair and free election.
“Apart from this, Chief Wike, on whom Mr. President is building his hopes of PDP reclaiming Rivers State, has lost political relevance since he left the mainstream of the political family that binds Rivers State together under the leadership of the man that made him whatever he is politically today – Governor Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi. Wike is either deluding himself or deliberately feeding Mr. President with lies in a bid to feather his nest.”
Ikanya also cited the president’s “wickedness” towards Rivers State as yet another reason why PDP will not recapture power in the state.
“On what basis should the people of Rivers State vote for PDP in 2015? Is it based on the wicked policies of the Jonathan administration against Rivers State and her people?
“Is it based on the ceding of our oil wells to his home state of Bayelsa and supporting Akwa Ibom and Abia states to take over our oil wells? Or is it because he has ensured that the federal government does not site any meaningful project in Rivers State? Or his deliberate refusal to implement the UNEP Report on Ogoni?”