Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers State Governor Nyesom Wike, has explained the reason behind his probe of the immediate past administration of Mr. Rotimi Amaechi.
Wike said the essence of the probe was to shed light on some grey areas, insisting that it was not a witch-hunt as claimed by his predecessor.
The governor, who spoke with journalists yesterday in Abuja, disclosed that the recommendation of the probe panel would determine the cause of action to be taken against Amaechi.
He also did not foreclose the possibility of handing over the findings of the judicial panel of inquiry to anti-graft agencies.
He said: “The essence of the judicial commission does not have to do with witch-haunting anybody, but to understand things we could not have understood.
“If he had worked with the transition committee we set up, the committee would have asked one or two questions. No transition committee was set up by government (Amaechi’s administration).
“It is only our state that never had any transition committee. We set up our own transition committee. It made every communication; it wrote. They did not cooperate with it”.
Wike also claimed that the ex-governor was only trying to use the media to divert attention from the probe panel.
His words: “He (Amaechi) said he would use all constitutional and legal means. The commission is not an unconstitutional commission. It is a constitutional and legal commission.
“Nobody has been indicted. We only ask them to look into matters and ask one or two questions”, he stressed.
Wike recalled that his predecessor also set up probe panels, yet nobody accused him of witch-hunting them.
The governor also debunked the report making the rounds that he collected a handover note, saying “Let us start from the national level. When Jonathan was leaving, did he just handover just the villa? Did he not handover the whole government structure; from one ministry to the other?”
Wike noted that the Permanent Secretary of the Government House never gave him a handover note.
The governor of the Rivers State is going to set a precedent if the probe was carried out. The precedent can be relied on by an incumbent governor when initiating a probe against previous governor. I think the governor’s action should be commended.