• PDP leaders stopped Fubara from resigning, says ex-PANDEF scribe
The former Director General of the Progressives Governors Forum (PGF), Malam Salihu Lukman, says the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nyesom Wike, must be ready to swallow the bitter pill of the treatment being meted to him by Governor Siminalaye Fubara of Rivers State.
In an interview with newsmen in Abuja, he warned that the citizenry in the oil rich state could be at the receiving end of the face-off between Wike and Fubara.
Lukman, who resigned his position as the All Progressives Congress (APC) National Vice Chairman, North West, accused the APC of over indulging Wike over the unfortunate development in Rivers.
He said: “I think we should take responsibility, in some ways, because, perhaps if, as leaders of the party, we didn’t indulge Wike the way we did, he would have managed his relationship back in Rivers with the governor and other political leaders better.
“Honestly, I don’t want to play cheap politics; we must appeal to Wike, if for whatever reason he will make the choice he made to support Fubara to emerge as the governor, he must take responsibility and live with the consequences and find a way to swallow the bitter pills.
“Because we are not talking about governance. The more he mismanaged his relationship with Fubara, those who are going to be receiving the short end of the stick are the people of Rivers.”
MEANWHILE, the National Coordinator, South-South Leadership Forum, Anabs Sara-Igbe, has said that the intervention of some leaders of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) stopped the governor from resigning before the leadership feud between him and Wike got heightened.
Sara-Igbe made this known in an interview with Channels Television.
According to the former spokesperson for the Pan-Niger Delta Forum, Fubara was tired of Wike’s dominance in his cabinet and control of state affairs, leading to his (Fubara) difficulties in managing the state’s funds and running of government.
He also alleged that even after leaving office, Wike still had a say in government operations and how the governor was managing the affairs of the state.
He said: “Fubara opted to resign because apart from the way certain forces prevented him from asserting his independence, he didn’t have enough control over the state’s funds and had difficulty running his government. It took the intervention of some PDP leaders in the state before he reconsidered his stance.
“What is the problem? Wike has come to tell the world that he was fighting Fubara because he wanted to take his structure. What is the structure six months after elections? We are not close to elections, so what has structure got to do?
