By Charles Adingupu
Nigerians will not forget in a hurry the brush off President-elect, Asiwaju Ahmed Bola Tinubu gave Governor Nyesom Wike when he requested for the refund of about ₦80 billion his administration paid to contractors for the construction of 12 flyover bridges and federal roads in Rivers State.
Tinubu had replied that he owed the governor nothing though he could be amenable to lobbying, a remark which has been trending in both social and traditional media in the last 24 hours.
Governor Wike who understood that the president-elect had made the remark as a joke has accused those interpreting the statement as a derogatory remark, of deliberate misrepresentation.
Addressing the issue during a state banquet held in honour of Tinubu, Governor Wike stated that people only chose to focus on the part of Tinubu’s statement where he said he does not owe Wike anything, while intentionally leaving out the part where Tinubu asked him to lobby him.
Wike described these critics as people with “bad belle” which in local parlance means those with evil intensions who wish for the collapse of his political affinity with the President-elect.
