BY MAYOWA SAMUEL
The All Progressives Congress in Rivers State has asked Governor Nysom Wike to focus on the crisis rocking his party, the Peoples Democratic Party, and stop claiming credit for the victory of the ruling party in the state at the presidential polls.
The Rivers APC chairman, Emeka Beke, stated this in an exclusive interview with The Point on the outcome of the presidential polls and his expectations about the upcoming March 18 governorship election in the state.
Recall that the Presidential election in the state saw the presidential candidate of the APC, Bola Tinubu win the state after polling 231,591 votes from 23 local governments to defeat closest rivals Peter Obi, the presidential candidate of the Labour Party who polled 175,071 votes and Atiku Abubakar, the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, who polled 88,468 votes.
Tinubu, after the collation of results from all the states in the country, eventually defeated 17 other candidates by scoring a total of 8,794,726 votes, closely followed by Atiku who polled 6,984,520 votes; Obi who had a total of 6,101,533 votes and Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso of the New Nigeria Peoples Party who polled 1,496,687 votes.
Wike was said to have been instrumental to the victory of the APC in the state after he and his G5 group had sworn not to lend their support for the PDP candidate, Atiku Abubakar, due to the refusal of the party to zone the party chairmanship to the South.
Beke, however, would not take any of such insinuations that Wike made the APC victory possible in the state. He said, “Is Gov Wike a member of APC? He should go back to his party and get the victory for his party. You can’t be saying you got victory for another party, go and sort your own problem out.”
He also expressed confidence that his party will replicate its victory at the February 25 presidential polls and win the governorship election in the state come March 18, 2023.
He said, “The election has come and gone, we’re now talking about the governorship election coming up on Saturday. That’s where all our focus is right now.
“In the whole of the South South, APC won election in Rivers State, we must be given that kudos. What played out that day will still play out for the governorship, we will still win the governorship in Rivers State.
The governorship election slated for March 18 will witness the APC candidate, Tonye Cole, slug it out with Siminalayi Fubara of the PDP, Beatrice Itubo of the Labour Party, amongst others.
On the news that the Labour Party in the state had dumped its candidate Itubo and endorsed PDP’s Fubara, and how much of a challenge the alliance may affect his party’s chances, the party chairman played down the potential of such alliance to his party’s candidate.
“An individual can wake up to adopt a candidate; it was not their entire exco that adopted the candidate. If you can trace the history, the chairman of that party is from Okpopo where the PDP governorship candidate comes from. So, that’s not a problem for us, it’s not something that we need to worry about. Nobody wants PDP to take over government house in 2023,” he explained.
