Rivers Crisis: If You Take My Base, I’m Politically Irrelevant, Says Wike

Posted by Samson Kankan Featured, Latest Headlines, News Across Nigeria Tuesday, October 31st, 2023

(AFRICAN EXAMINER) – The Minister of Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nyesom Wike, has weighed in on the crisis rocking Rivers State amid the plot to impeach Governor Siminalayi Fubara of the oil-rich state.

Receiving South-South leaders at his office on Tuesday, Wike, a former Rivers State Governor, emphasised the importance of holding his base to maintain his political relevance.

He maintained that once he loses his base as a politician, he has lost his relevance politically. Wike explained that no amount of calumny levelled against him would make him lose sleep, adding that the right thing must be done.

“All of us want to be politically relevant; all of us want to maintain our political structure,” the minister said.

“Is it not your political structure? Will you allow anybody to just cut you out immediately? Everybody has a base. If you take my base, am I not politically irrelevant?”

The relationship between Wike and Fubara is said to have gone sour following the threat by the Assembly to impeach the governor.

Some have accused Wike of being the brain behind the impeachment plot. The Rivers Assembly Complex was turned into a confusion theatre after fire gutted a section on Sunday night

There was also some drama on Monday morning with the removal of principal officers in the Assembly as gunshots rent the air.

Fubara had stormed the Complex on Monday to see the level of the damage and alleged that he was shot at by the police, an allegation the police said was being probed.

Both Wike and Fubara are of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). But Wike noted that internal wranglings are common in politics and will be settled using the party’s mechanisms.

“In politics, there are a lot of internal wranglings,” he said.

“But to come out and say ‘Oh they want to do this against me, it will not work.’ I had every power then to say where this thing is going. So, when things are wrong, you ask questions. It is a party affair. The party knows how they resolve their own mechanism, it is not an ethnic affair.

“Our party is coming to it, that is what I will say. Every politician has his own interest,” the former governor added.