By Charles Adingupu
Despite the romance between Governor Nyesom Wike and the All Progressives Party, APC, the rivalry between the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Rivers State and the main opposition party in the state, (APC), is far from over.
Tuesday’s visit of the President-elect Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu to the State only fueled the raging tussle for political supremacy between the two parties as the Rivers State APC Governorship candidate in the just concluded general elections, Tonye Cole, was conspicuously absent from the occasion.
Cole who is currently in Court challenging the outcome of the last governorship election, has previously complained about the humiliation, intimidation and unbridled harassment he has suffered in the hands of thugs suspected to be loyalists of Governor Wike.
The President-elect was invited by Governor Wike to commission projects in the State but Cole justified his refusal to attend the events by saying that the governor failed to inform the APC in Rivers State that he was inviting Tinubu or that he would want the party to be part of the programme.
The APC Governorship candidate who made this declaration while responding to questions in an interview on Arise Television on Thursday, said he stayed away from the event because he was not invited.
“I will describe the visit from two sides. First side, as a President-elect of Nigeria, Asiwaju Tinubu has the right to go anywhere and as the Rivers State Government invited him, and he went to honour that invitation, we have no problem with that at all.”
He however took umbrage with Governor Nyesom Wike for failing to act as the governor of all Rivers people by neglecting to officially inform the APC in the state that he was inviting the President-elect and giving them the chance to be part of the ceremony.
“We never got any invitation,” he said. “I was never invited personally; I was not invited in my private capacity as a candidate of the party, neither was our party, APC, in the State invited to any of those things…and I believe that is the difference between the President-elect acting in his capacity as President-elect for all Nigerians and Governor Wike acting in his capacity as a governor of just a particular Rivers people. That is where our disagreement stands.”
Tinubu’s visit has famously settled the question of whether or not the President-elect considered himself indebted to Wike for his support during the presidential election which gave the APC a surprise win in Rivers State.
In a trending video, the governor had asked that Tinubu pay back the money his administration had spent on repairing federal roads when he formally takes over. “I don’t owe you anything,” Tinubu famously replied, adding that he was however prepared to be lobbied when the time comes.
The President-elect’s two day visit ends today with the commissioning of some more projects including the River State magistrate court building.
