Ahead of the March 19 Legislative rerun elections in Rivers State, Governor Nyesom Wike has alleged that the opposition All Progressives Congress in the state was planning to impeach him using the State House of Assembly.
The Court of Appeal had nullified the elections of all members of the Rivers State House and National Assembly with the exception of a House of Representatives member.
Wike alleged that the opposition party was planning to win the forthcoming polls by all means in order to get the majority in the state House of Assembly and subsequently remove him as governor.
He also alleged that part of the APC’s plot was to use security agents to intimidate and arrest top members of the Peoples Democratic Party and government functionaries to pave way for rigging during the election.
Wike, who spoke during a phone-in programme at a Port Harcourt-based radio station on Saturday, however, vowed to stand up against the arrest and harassment of PDP members by security agents.
The governor had earlier directed all PDP leaders, council chairmen and government functionaries to resist arrest by security agents based on trumped-up charges.
He said, “They (APC) want to win all the House of Assembly seats that are declared for rerun so that they can impeach me. They want me to fold my hands because I am a governor? Nobody does that. I am not a governor that will not just sit in his office.
“Do they (APC) want me as the chief security officer and one of the leaders of the PDP in this state to fold my hands when I know the strategies they have adopted? They want to arrest all PDP members, to intimidate them and put them off before the election so that they will have their way in the rerun and I said no, we cannot continue to allow that to happen.
“I am going to be involved. Nobody will rig this election and you must be popular to win this election. Rivers people must decide whom they want to vote for”.
While maintaining that PDP leaders in the state will only report to security agencies after the March 19 elections, the governor insisted that the harassment of his party men and government functionaries was politically motivated.
Reacting, the Rivers APC spokesman, Chris Finebone, assured the governor that his party was neither planning to impeach him nor to rig the state and National Assembly elections.
Finebone, who said he listened to Wike’s interview on radio, said, “If the governor has suddenly realised that rigging of election is not good, he should tell us that he is now a changed man because we know he rigged the last election.
“We want to assure him that we have no such plans to act in the way the governor acted in the past. However, it is uncharitable and unconscionable for the governor to make such allegations against the APC.
“We have no plan to rig the election and we have no plan to impeach him. Doing otherwise will mean playing God, which we do not do in the APC”.
On the invasion of Ogoni communities by the military about two weeks ago, Wike pointed out that it was not necessary for the entire military to storm the area in its bid to arrest an ex-militant, Solomon Ndigbara.
He said, “If they (military) are looking for one criminal as they alleged, do you need to be in Ogoni? Ask the security agencies; I have given them all the support to make sure that we fight the issue of criminality in this state.
“If you are saying that you are looking for one Solomon and that the Solomon is a criminal; why not? But for the entire military to be in Ogoni, does that not tell you that something is fishy somewhere?”
