Eniola Yekini
The Rivers State chapter of the African Democratic Congress (ADC) has declared that no politician in the state can win the forthcoming 2027 elections by boosting and sugar-coating the masses with lies and vain promises.
Reacting to a statement credited to the minister of the federal capital territory, FCT, Nyesom Wike, during a civic reception organised in his honour by the City Boy Movement at Omagwa on Saturday that Rotimi Amaechi, the vice presidential candidate of ADC, would be defeated by 12 noon on election day, the party said the boast does not win election.
In a statement he released on Monday in Port Harcourt, the state chairman of the ADC, Dr Chukwudi Dimkpa, said Wike’s boast that he would defeat Amaechi by 12 noon on election day is even revealing. “Elections are not won by boasts, intimidation or political strongmen announcing results in advance. Rivers people will vote, the votes will be counted, and INEC, not Wike, will declare the winner,” he said.
Dimkpa described Wike’s conduct at Omagwa on Saturday as a political rascality taken too far. “On a day when Rotimi Amaechi was burying his mother and people from across Nigeria were travelling to Ubima to commiserate with the family, Wike and the Chairman of Ikwerre Local Government Area (Charles Wobodo) chose that same route and occasion for a political reception, obstructing part of the road, creating unnecessary traffic and then turning the event into a platform for attacking and taunting a man who was mourning his mother. It was insensitive, provocative and embarrassing,” he said.
The ADC chairman said there is always a time for politics and there is a time for humanity, saying that “if Wike could not suspend his political obsession with Amaechi even for the few hours in which the man was laying his mother to rest, then the Rivers people should ask themselves who really is consumed by this rivalry.
“We refused to dignify the provocation with a response that day (Saturday) because our attention was on giving Mama (Dame Ezinne Amaechi) a befitting burial. But Wike should understand that Rivers State belongs to all of us. Nobody owns the people, nobody owns their votes, and certainly, nobody can declare an election result by 12 noon.”
Dimkpa, however, called on the Rivers people not to be intimidated by anybody but to be prepared to make the right choice in 2027 by electing a credible leader that would add value to their lives.
Wike told his supporters at the reception that all candidates chosen by the Rainbow Coalition would win the elections next year.