Rivers Now Excursion Site For Politicians As Orubebe Visits Wike

• Closed door meetings still beckoning

BY ONYEKACHUKWU IBEZIM – With political activities and realignments taking the centre stage ahead of the 2023 general elections, Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital is fasting turning into an expedition site for political actors with Governor Nyesom Wike as the irresistible chief host on parade.

Just weeks after the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential primaries in which he came second behind eventual winner, former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, the Rivers State Chief Executive has continued to receive in audience many esteemed guests across parties’ lines.

The latest in tow is former Niger Delta Affairs Minister, the controversial Godsday Orubebe who met with the governor behind closed doors at his private residence in Port Harcourt on Thursday, June 23, 2022.

Neither Orubebe, who recently resigned his membership of the PDP nor Governor Wike, who has refused to back down from lashing out at his critics, spoke to journalists after the meeting.

In quitting the country’s main opposition party, Orubebe expressed anger at PDP’s decision to abandon zoning and gift the party’s presidential ticket to the North for the next general elections in 2023.

Both men were key players in former President Goodluck Jonathan’s Federal Executive Council (FEC) before Wike’s resignation to contest the 2015 governorship election on the PDP platform.

Orubebe’s visit comes on the heels of the Labour Party (LP) Presidential candidate, Peter Obi’s recent closed door meeting with Governor Wike on Wednesday at his private residence in Port Harcourt.

Obi, who released a statement on his verified Twitter handle on Thursday, said the visit was to discuss vital national issues.

So far, the roll call of visitors to the Garden City includes Governor Bala Mohammed of Bauchi State whose mission to the South South state is still being kept under wraps.

However, insiders hinted that the visit of Governor Bala, who also contested as a PDP presidential aspirant, may not be unconnected with moves to ensure that no other party, especially the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), catches Wike’s fancy ahead of the 2023 presidential election.

Many political watchers still believe that Governor Wike is still an angry man given his unmistakable accusation that the southern governors within the PDP betrayed him, and even the public admission that his love for the party proved overriding than the urge to scuttle the PDP presidential primary.

The Rivers Chief Executive, while faulting the process, had said; “I have never seen how people can violate procedures and guidelines. Somebody has spoken, it is at that point he was speaking that he would have said I am withdrawing.

“You don’t call him back. I just said, ‘Look, this our party must not be destroyed.”