From Douglas Blessing, Port Harcourt
A group, Southern Nigeria Peoples Assembly (SNP) has condemned the utterances of the former Governor of Niger State, Babangida Aliyu, against Rivers State Governor Nyesom Wike.
The South South group said the insinuation by Aliyu that Wike lacks the capacity and temperament to become a vice-president, was malicious and unstatemanly.
Describing Wike as an illustrious and highly celebrated son of Ikwerre in Rivers, SNP said Aliyu acted far below dignity with a primordial and archaic sentiment.
The leader of SNP, Livingstone Wechie, who spoke in Port Harcourt, yesterday, said Aliyu’s assertion coming in the face of the current political and economic disputation failed the sensitivity test and raised a lot of concern.
Wechie said Aliyu’s utterances were suspicious and designed to fuel crisis and fan the embers of avoidable conflict within the ranks of the party at a time the PDP should be mending walls and begging for peace.
Wechie insisted that Wike remained many polls apart in capacity, temperament and political character when compared with Aliyu.
He said: “The records of political profile between both figures are extremely apart as a Nyesom Wike has built an unsurpassible political clout that dwarfs everything Babangida Aliyu represents and this is not in dispute.
“Governor Nyesom Wike in his capacity is in a class of his own as the lawyers will say sui generis. His marks must be kept close to the chest drawing from the lessons of Donald Trump’s political pedigree in the United States of America whose feat continues to hunt American politics because of his background of not being among the ruling family or class yet took America by storm in such unwavering propensity.
“It is on record that Babangida Aliyu in 2015 as an incumbent failed to produce a successor as Governor of Niger State which candidate he allegedly foisted on the PDP and went on to lose both the Governorship seat to the opposition APC as well as his own Senatorial election as a seating Governor and this is quite humiliating.
“Meanwhile the same Wike whose profile he seeks to undermine won his governorship election same year wherein he defeated a sitting governor and grabbed all the state and National Assembly seats in Rivers state as an ordinary civilian who was not occupying any office at the time he ran for that office in 2015.
“No doubt the issue here is political, it is conversely unsavoury and alien for a dwarf to drag heights with a giant. The leaders of your party have countlessly attested to the fact that Governor Nyesom Wike resuscitated the PDP after it was almost deserted and abandoned to die by many who now gain from it.
“The investment of commitment and price of sacrifices made by the Rivers State Governor in rebounding the party and placing it on its feet to function as an opposition party after the Goodluck Jonathan loss is something nobody can erase through any act of deletion.
“The PDP has always celebrated the efforts of Nyesom Wike as the stabiliser of the Party when the chips were down. It is no doubt on public record that Nyesom Wike largely took on the task of shouldering the survival of the PDP in a way that made him the rallying point and a mecca.
“Little wonder why he Governor Wike in retrospect exposed and identified Babangida Aliyu as a mole within the party and current developments indicate that Babangida Aliyu may not have completed his assignment by his sponsors and co-travelers both within and outside the PDP which sole purpose is to knee on the neck of the Party”.
He reminded Aliyu that Wike contended with a former Vice-President who has been contesting election since 1993, and came “this far” despite being a first timer in the race whose background might not be as those of the contemporary ruling class.
Wechie advised: “Alhaji Atiku Abubakar the PDP Presidential Candidate is hereby called upon to take charge of his Campaign and caution the likes of Babangida Aliyu to desist from this untoward frolic.
“If the PDP must maintain a wining chance, it must guide against the malicious attitude of Babangida Aliyu who is using the potential opportunities of Alhaji Atiku Abubakar to damage the votes that should come from the South-South where Nyesom Wike holds sway”.
