Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike, has reiterated that he will not join the All Progressives Congress, despite its stance on zoning the presidency to the south. <\/p>\n

The governor, who described the insinuations that he will defect to the APC as speculative, maintained that he remained an unrepentant member of the Peoples Democratic Party. <\/p>\n

Governor Wike stated these at the 114th quarterly general meeting of the Rivers State Council of Traditional Rulers in Port Harcourt, the state capital on Monday. <\/p>\n

He informed the council ahead of Saturday\u2019s presidential election that he would be voting for only the candidate that could guarantee the unity of the country.<\/p>\n

Wike said, \u201cI am not a member of the APC and I will not be. But, they have made me to recognise that they are the heroes of this country. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe governors came out to say look, for the unity of this country, presidency should go to the south. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe governors of the APC said the way the country is, they want the unity of this country and therefore, the presidency should go to the south.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey could have as well said no, it doesn\u2019t matter. As governors, we have the number. We can still say it should remain where it should remain. But they didn\u2019t do that. <\/p>\n

\u201cThey said the way we are seeing this country we want everybody to be together. <\/p>\n

\u201cLet no one say because I have the population, therefore, you will continue to dominate. In dominating you need peace, without peace you cannot govern.\u201d <\/p>\n

Speaking on the crisis in the PDP, the governor stated that Rivers State had helped to sustain the party right from the era of former Governor Peter Odili down to his administration. <\/p>\n

Therefore, he insisted that it was wrong for a section of the country to deny other people the opportunity to participate in presiding over the affairs of the nation. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe are all Nigerians and we want the unity of this country. We want Nigeria to move forward as a united country. <\/p>\n

\u201cRivers State has always been in support of one Nigeria and we\u2019ll continue to support one Nigeria.\u00a0 But in doing that, we believe in equity, we believe in justice, we believe in fairness.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs the governor of this state, I will vote for the unity of this country. I will vote for anything that will unite Nigeria. <\/p>\n

\u201cI will not support anything that will divide Nigeria. And that is what necessitated the principle of live and let\u2019s live. <\/p>\n

\u201cIf only one person continues to live, things will not be good. It\u2019s not about party, it is about Nigeria. I am a member of the Peoples Democratic Party, unrepentant member, who, in fact, built this party when people ran away,\u201d he stated. <\/p>\n

He\u00a0 explained that the reason why he had been one of the arrowheads of those agitating inclusivity in the PDP was because of his belief in the unity of the country. <\/p>\n

According to him, a strategic state like Rivers cannot be relegated to play second fiddle in the country. <\/p>\n

Wike said though he did not encourage traditional rulers\u2019 involvement in politics, he urged them to support the PDP governorship candidate, Sir Siminialayi Fubara, who he formally presented to the council, for the continuity of the developmental strides recorded by his administration since 2015. <\/p>\n

\u201cIn the next few months, I will be former (governor). But former in a big way. My transition will be smooth, there will be no crisis.<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t make mistake to go and vote for another person. You want to distort everything we have done, and then our state will go backward. Let\u2019s allow continuity.\u201d <\/p>\n

The Chairman of the Rivers State Council of Traditional Rulers, His Majesty, King Dandeson Jaja, Jeki V, Amanyanabo of Opobo, thanked the governor for the respect he had accorded the council since his assumption of office. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike, has reiterated that he will not join the All Progressives Congress, despite its stance on zoning the presidency to the south. The governor, who described…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":469116,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[30],"class_list":["post-469115","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-punch-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nigerianewspapers.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469115","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nigerianewspapers.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nigerianewspapers.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nigerianewspapers.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nigerianewspapers.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=469115"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nigerianewspapers.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469115\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nigerianewspapers.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/469116"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nigerianewspapers.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=469115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nigerianewspapers.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=469115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nigerianewspapers.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=469115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}