“Wike Is Living On Borrowed Time” – Fmr. Gov. Sam Egwu

By Adesina Soyooye

A former Governor of Ebonyi State, Dr. Sam Egwu, has slammed the Minister for the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, Nyesom Wike, for what he described as the Minister’s reckless manner of speaking.

Egwu, a two-term Governor of Ebonyi State said this while replying to Wike’s response to the ultimatum given by the South-east PDP to the  National Leadership of the Party in respect of the office of the National Secretary of the Party.

The South-east stakeholders of the PDP, including its only Governor in the Zone, Dr Peter Mba of Enugu State, and former Governors which included Egwu and Chief Achike Udenwa, a former two-term Governor of Imo State, had told the National Leadership of the Party to confirm its choice of National Secretary, Sunday Udeh-Okoye, in place of the incumbent Senator Samuel Anyanwu, popular as Samdaddy.

But the National body has been dragging its feet. The situation has escalated so much it has been in out of Court, including the Supreme Court. There seems no end to it.

But finally, majority of the stakeholders in the South-east, a few days ago, at a meeting at the Government House Enugu, issued an ultimatum to the National Body to accept Udeh-Okoye as the National Secretary or the Zone would  review its relationship with the PDP.

It is in response to the threat that Wike not only dismissed the threat as empty, but singled out, and descended on former Governors Egwu and Udenwa.

Speaking with the BBC Pidgin, Wike dismissed both men as  literally without any clout. He said none of them was able to install his successor in office as Governor, and that none was even able install a National Assembly Member, or  win more than three per cent votes for the party. Based on those, Wike asked on what grounds the two former Governors would threaten the Party.

But in a statement, Egwu expressed shock and embarrassment at Wike’s reaction. For a collective decision, Egwu wondered, why Wike would single out the two of them, (he and Udenwa) only to attack.

Egwu, after flaunting his achievements in office, including installing his successor, warned Wike that he was living on borrowed time.

He challenged Wike to try and install another Governor after Siminalayi Fubara, and promised him Fubara would be his last.

Part of Egwu’s statement reads: “My attention has been drawn to the unsavory remarks by the Minister for the Federal Capital Territory, Mr Nyesom Wike wherein he described the demand by South-east leaders on the PDP as empty.

“Particularly worrisome is Wike’s personalisation of what was supposed to be a collective position of PDP stalwarts in the South-east. It is in bad taste for Wike to have singled out Achike Udenwa and myself for vilification. This attack is not only embarrassing to me, it is unwarranted.

“As a political family, the PDP in the South-east Zone has the right to take a position on matters that affect it, one way or the other. That was simply what we did. It is not upto Wike or any other person for that matter to use that as a launchpad for personal attacks and launch-pad.”

Wike’s Rivers State is, no thanks to his soiled relationship with his estranged political godson,  Fubara, PDP, is under an Emergency Rule headed by a retired Chief of Naval Staff Vice Admiral Ibok-Ette Ibas. And, for the records, Wike, PDP member he insists and emphasizes, is a high profile Minister in the APC Federal Government.