BY VICTOR BUORO – The Delta North senatorial candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Prince Ned Nwoko has berated Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers state as a political nuisance that must be expelled from the country’s main opposition party.
According to Nwoko, the Party should no longer condone Governor Wike’s excesses, given his penchant for instigating crisis in PDP since losing the presidential primary to Atiku Abubakar and the vice presidential nomination to Governor Ifeanyi Okowa of Delta State.
Following up on his interview with journalists at Asaba Airport earlier in the week, Prince Nwoko said the Rivers State Chief Executive should be expelled from the party immediately, even as he accused him of wasting the State’s resources trying to bribe some party officials for his pecuniary gains.
“He has impoverished Rivers state through wasteful and expensive inordinate ambitions to remain in power”, the Senatorial candidate fired at Governor Wike who in a statement by his Commissioner for Information, Mr Chris Finebone, said Nwoko’s persistent attacks on Wike were connected to the $418 million Paris club refund being claimed by some consultants, including Nwoko, which Wike and some other governors have opposed.
However, reacting to the governor’s comments, Ned Nwoko Media directorate described him as a sore loser, embittered by electoral defeat, urging him to come to reality with the fact that the presidential primary has come and gone.
The team tasked him “to disclose his political pedigree, other than a shameless latter-day opportunist who got power by the patronage of a godfather in 2015”
In a statement issued at Asaba on Saturday, the Nwoko Media directorate further challenged Wike thus: “Let Wike name his source of livelihood outside the political office, obtained through rascality and dubious tactics.
“It is unfortunate that a failed obscure lawyer as timid as a local goat had been posturing in recent times with the false airs of an emperor, insulting those far better than him in education and exposure.
“It is unacceptable for Wike to continue to embarrass PDP with crude, unruly and bellicose tendencies attempting to play God. Wike is a bad-tempered trouble-monger. He should stop his recklessness. Enough of his unguarded statements, unbecoming of a governor. Why is he crying everywhere because he lost an election? Who made him an indispensable leader? Does he know how PDP evolved? His agitations are not genuine but selfish.
“He spoke dishonesty about the London- Paris club refund. He should be grateful. But for the initiative of Prince Ned Nwoko when Wike was struggling to be a local government chairman, the over 60 billion Naira he collected as Rivers state’s share from the Paris club refund would not have been possible.
“When Ned Nwoko was engaged by the states from 2005 as a solicitor of the Supreme Court of England and he began his campaigns (at the High Court in London) for the federal government to stop further deductions from the states and local governments allocations and for the excess deductions to be refunded, where was Wike.? He was totally and completely out of his depths, inconsequential, and will still be after the elections. Where was he when the likes of governors Bonny Haruna, Orji Kalu, Peter Obi, and Jolly Nyame visited Ned Nwoko’s office in London with their teams?
“Is it not an insult and stupidity to ask what Prince Nwoko does for a living after hugely benefiting from his patriotic efforts? Is it not a grave irresponsibility for Wike to open his mouth and suggest that he is one of those stopping Ned Nwoko’s payments after receiving huge refunds from the Paris Club refunds?”
Tackling Wike further on the deployment of resources by his administration, the Nwoko Media directorate said; “The Rivers state governor squandered the Paris club refund, that accrued to the state, diverted the entitlements that ought to have been paid the local governments, for self-gratification. How did he utilize the money? He mismanaged it. Even the money for the councils. Instead, Wike is gallivanting around the world wasting Rivers state’s money chasing shadows and in the process, 25 innocent kids died in the state hospital because of a lack of electricity in the hospital.
“In a civilized society, Wike should have resigned. Indeed, he would be prosecuted for the deaths of these innocent kids. This is unpardonable criminal negligence, yet a power-hungry governor like Wike is busy looking for another political office to continue pillaging public resources while his people suffer.”
Insisting that Governor Wike is not fighting for the south interest as he is claiming, the statement by Prince Nwoko further said; “He is greedy. If he was chosen as the VP as he desperately wanted, would he have been complaining that the PDP national chairman, Ayu should go? Certainly not.”
“Those who got into offices through fraudulent politics must be cautious in exercising transient authority”, the statement said
