By Charles Igbo
Over three years to the Governorship Election in Rivers State, the Governor of Rivers State, Siminalayi Fubara, already knows who his main competitor will be unless he is not interrogating the utterances of his predecessor, Nyesom Wike.
Baring any last minute changes, Fubara will face stiff competition from a very strong competitor, Honourable Kingsley Chinda, popular among his circle of friends as O.K.
When, and not if, that happens, Chinda is going to be backed, fully, by the political emperor of the State, Wike.
As far as Wike, now the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, is concerned, Fubara is already a one-term Governor. He has not hidden that since he fell out with the Governor who he, incidentally, installed in office. He has since regretted installing Fubara as Governor, a fact he hammered upon over the weekend in Porthacourt.
Wike made that point at a Special Thanksgiving Service by Chinda to mark his birthday, and celebrate his new status as the Minority Leader of the House of Representatives.
Addressing his loyalists at the occasion, he expressed regrets for picking Fubara over Chinda. But for the pressure, Minister Wike said, Chinda would have been his successor. In addition to the pressure, Wike also said Fubara deceived him by his attitude and demeanor which, he said, completely changed soon after he became the Governor.
Wike: “Pressure came on me at a time when we wanted someone who would succeed me. One of the very best I would have presented would have been Kingsley Chinda not those Ikwerre people who were running around saying they wanted to be Governor, that they could not serve a master and boy. But they are waiting on the road now to serve the boy.
“No real Ikwerre man says that and goes back. Chinda had told you not to bother yourself. In Ikwerre tradition, when you start beating the drum of wrestling, it is not at that time that the real wrestlers will come out.
“The real wrestlers will come in later towards the end. Leave all these people who cannot stand ordinary hunger. Leave these political harlots. I will continue to defeat them. What you know, you know.”
Even though Wike still says he is still of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, but serving under an All Progressives Congress, APC Government, he has since declared himself the Leader of both the APC and PDP in the State. This means that he is likely to produce a single candidate who will be supported by both Political Parties.
