Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers State has claimed that nobody can become Nigeria’s president without securing the votes of his state combined with Lagos or Kano.
Wike, in a statement by his Special Assistant, Media, Kelvin Ebiri, spoke at the grand finale of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) local government election campaign at Ulakwo in Etche Local Government area on Thursday.
According to the Rivers governor, such pivotal position established the importance of Rivers in the political scheme of the country and nobody would be allowed to undermine it.
He said: “I keep telling the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) that no state has given more votes to the party than Rivers.
“And it is only in Rivers, in the whole of South-South, that the All Progressives Congress (APC) didn’t get 25 per cent votes in 2019 General election. We thought them a lesson.
“In Nigeria, nobody wins presidency if you didn’t win either Rivers and Lagos or Kano and Lagos together. Rivers is not a state anybody can joke with. Some states went to negotiate with them. Rivers didn’t do it.”
Meanwhile, Wike also berated Senator Andrew Uchendu for his alleged comments in the media.
The governor wondered what courage he had to talk against PDP administration that was ending the suffering he inflicted on his people.
He said: “I was watching Arise Television the other day and I heard Senator Andrew Uchendu and the Chief Medical Director of University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital. The CMD said I asked him to indict the former governor. I don’t know that he has such judicial power. I don’t also know his basis.
“He (CMD) set up a target. The man was lobbying to be a commissioner where our former party chairman comes from without even doing due consultation. Because I didn’t give him commissioner, he ran and started to abuse me.”