N700m Poll Bribery Scam: Gov Wike, Please Clear the Air!

Posted by African Examiner Featured, Latest Headlines, News Saturday, May 21st, 2016

As the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) holds its factional national convention in Port Harcourt Saturday, one member of the State Working Committee of the PDP that will surely be absent from the event is Mr. Samuel Johnson Okpoko, Rivers State Secretary of the PDP.

Operatives of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) are grilling Mr. Okpoko, for collecting N700 million from the controversial $115m lodged with Fidelity Bank Plc, by the immediate past Minister of Petroleum Resources, Diezani Allison-Madueke and used to bribe INEC officials to change results to favour the PDP during the 2015 general elections across Nigeria.

It is now close to a week since the news came out of the (EFCC) that the detained State Secretary of the PDP has told the EFCC that he collected N700 million of the poll bribery cash from Fidelity Bank on the instruction of Governor Nyesom Wike.

However, the Rivers State governor, Chief Nyesom Wike, has kept sealed lips about the revelation by the PDP State Secretary who is about to be charged to court next week by the anti-graft agency. Instead, the governor is busy with the illegal national convention of the PDP taking place today [Saturday] in Port Harcourt.

The APC notes that whereas the anti-graft agency might put the invitation of the governor on hold because of constitutional immunity, he is already being investigated. This is because immunity does not prevent the EFCC from investigating the allegation against the governor and keeping vital information for his trial after his tenure.

The APC wishes to call on Gov. Nyesom Wike to clear the air about this obviously damaging revelation which has painted the image of the office of the Governor and that of the State in opprobrious light. It is the conviction of the APC that the governor owes it as a duty to Rivers people to confirm or deny with facts and figures the accusation which is raging on in cyberspace and in the traditional media like wild fire.

As a party that observed the sneaky happenings at the 2015 general elections in Rivers State and the nation, the APC would like to keep its conclusions about what happened to itself. But we urge Gov. Nyesom Wike to tell Rivers people and Nigerians his role in the confessions made against him by the State Secretary of his own party, the PDP.

Chris Finebone

State Publicity Secretary