Tony Okocha, Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC) Caretaker Committee in Rivers State, warned critics on Friday not to distort the narrative of the state’s crisis insisting that Governor Siminalayi Fubara is an investment of Federal Capital Territory Minister Nyesom Wike.
Okocha said this during a media briefing at the party’s national secretariat in Abuja.
Okocha, who was former Governor Rotimi Amaechi’s Chief of Staff from 2007 to 2015, said he feels humiliated every time he listens to a radio program and hears the presenters deliver a biased narrative.
“I can tell you that the conversations going on around the state are skewed. They need to hear our side of the story. Some people are blaming us at the APC and even bringing in the FCT Minister for the crisis in Rivers. They are holding us in scorn.
“Naturally, I know what anybody will say is that he (Wike) has done eight years; why is he not allowing someone else to run his own? But that is not the narrative.
“Nobody makes an investment and throws it away; the business will fail. Governor Fubara is Wike’s political investment. I must have said this many times. This is because he lifted him from ground zero and put him where he is today. Fubara was never a politician; he was a civil servant.
“He was taken from a state of relative obscurity in his local government to a political crescendo, which is the position of governor in a state like Rivers. So, it is not a case of Wike suffocating anybody in Rivers; it is just a case of Governor Sim Fubara versus the same Governor Sim Fubara. He is the governor. In Ikwerre’s parlance, there is an adage that says, ‘You are the man that holds the yam and the knife.’”
Continuing, Okocha criticised the governor for ignoring President Bola Tinubu’s intervention and a court order directing him to re-present the 2024 budget to the Martins Amaewhule-led State House of Assembly.
He claimed that rather than adhering to the agreed-upon conclusion, Fubara let his adherents loose by threatening and attempting to blackmail the president.
“There was an intervention by Mr. President through an eight-point agenda. The president said the governor was wrong by presenting the budget to a four-member assembly over and above 27 others and that he should go back and re-present it. Fubara accepted and told Mr. President that, being the first time he was meeting with him, whatever he said pertaining to Rivers, he would abide by.
“He also made a request, and the president asked him to state it. The request was that those who worked with him from his side should not be vilified or punished.
“The president assured him that nothing of the sort would happen, as the meeting was for reconciliation. After that, all manner of narratives arose. Some said he signed under duress; others claimed he was ambushed. The fifth columnist was also on the prowl for pecuniary interests.
“But did he implement the decision of Mr. President and the judgement of the court to re-present the budget to the House of Assembly under Martin Amaewhule? Now, some people are going about trying to skew the narrative that those who got the recent judgement are enemies of Rivers. But is it right for the governor to run a state without a budget? It is even dangerous for us as a state because you don’t have a limit for spending,” he warned.
