Governor Simi Fubara and associates of his penultimate predecessor, Rotimi Amaechi have been thrown into dilemma with the decision by the Presidency to hand over the structures of the All Progressives Congress, APC in Rivers State to FCT minister, Nyesom Wike.
Report said that the development had put Wike in a unique position of being in control of the ruling and the major opposition parties in Rivers State.
A report by GWH said it was an unprecedented development that offered little room for manoeuvre by the minister’s political rivals.
Associates of a former governor and former minister of transportation, Rotimi Amaechi are particularly displeased with the decision, given the appointment of Tony Okocha, a rabid supporter of Wike’s as chairman of the seven-man caretaker committee expected to supervise the production of a new party register.
“It is very, very unfair. This is wickedness, and it is something that should never have been done,” a prominent member of the Amaechi camp in the APC reportedly told GWG.ng
Okocha, who served as chief of staff to Amaechi while he was governor, had joined Wike’s camp and was a vocal advocate for Wike’s emergence as minister from the State.
He also has along the way antagonized Amaechi. He was recently rewarded with his nomination into the board of the Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC.
Lamenting the decision of the APC to push away supporters of Amaechi, one senior party chief added:
“Do you because you want to punish Amaechi, push away more than 500,000 persons away from the party,” the senior party chief said.
Besides the Amaechi loyalists, another political camp that has also been dazed by the decision to hand over the APC structure to Wike is Governor Fubara and his associates.
GWG.ng reports that the governor had recently made a move to free himself from the entanglement of the Wike, leading to the polarization of the State House of Assembly between the governor’s camp and the camp of Wike.
With the decision to gift the APC structure to Wike, the governor it is believed to have to reassess his options. [GWG]
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