Amaechi To Wike,Leave Rivers Politics And Face ASUU,ASUP Strike

The Governor of Rivers State, Rotimi Amaechi, has asked the Minister of State for Education, Chief Nyesom Wike, to stop his 2015 governorship campaign. He advised him to face the strike by the members of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) and the Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics (ASUP).

Amaechi, who is also the Chairman of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF), yesterday, in a telephone interview, stated that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) must call Wike to order, for violating its regulation of campaigning only 90 days to elections.

The minister of state for education, however, stated that he was not campaigning for 2015 governorship, asking Amaechi to face infrastructural decay in Rivers State, while alleging that the Rivers governor and his “cohorts” were behind ASUU and ASUP strike to embarrass President Goodluck Jonathan.

Wike is the grand patron of the Grassroots Development Initiative (GDI), while he and members of the group have been moving round the state’s 23 local government areas for GDI’s inauguration and they will be in Etche LG today (Sunday).

Prior to his emergence as the minister of state for education, Wike, a two-term Chairman of Obio/Akpor LG Council, was the Chief of Staff, Government House, Port Harcourt and doubled as the Director-General of Amaechi Campaign Organisation in 2011.

Amaechi expressed surprise that the minister of state for education, who is now supervising minister of the ministry, was acting as if he was above the law, in view of his closeness to President Jonathan, with INEC leadership being helpless.

He noted that emphasis must be placed on the rule of law and due process, in order not to make mockery of the hard-earned democracy.

The Rivers governor, who spoke through the Chief of Staff, Government House, Port Harcourt, Chief Tony Okocha, said: “ASUU members have been on strike for over three months. ASUP members decided to resume their suspended strike over Federal Government’s insincerity and inability to honour the agreement signed with the union. Is it not shameful that the Federal Government signed an agreement with ASUU in 2009 and yet to fully implement the terms?

“Whether ASUU and ASUP members are on strike for one year, is not Wike’s business. He is gallivanting all over Rivers State for his 2015 governorship campaign and using President Jonathan as a smokescreen

“The leadership of INEC cannot pretend not to be aware of Wike’s governorship campaign which was transmitted live on the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA). It is no longer secret.”

He accused the minister of moving round the state to campaign. “You cannot give what you do not have. Wike is dry intellectually and has never practised as a lawyer. He is not interested in qualitative education. He is only after award of contracts for Almajiri schools to his cronies for his cut, without following due process.

“President Jonathan is very happy with Wike’s governorship campaign and activities in Rivers State, believing that he (Wike) is checkmating Governor Amaechi. It is a case of your enemy’s enemy is your friend. The focused and performing NGF Chairman has no problem with Dr. Jonathan.

“Wike’s governorship campaign calls for concern. INEC made it clear that there must be no campaign until 90 days to the elections. Prof. Attahiru Jega, as a man of integrity, must rise to the occasion and call Wike to order.”

The minister of state for education, who spoke through the Secretary-General of the GDI, Samuel Nwanosike, asked well-meaning Nigerians to call Amaechi to order, in order to stop embarrassing Rivers people.

Wike also declared that the people of Rivers State were very proud of President Jonathan, not because his wife, Dame Patience, hails from Okrika in the state, while insisting that the president would be re-elected in 2015, in view of his “impressive” performance.

Nwanosike said: “Wike is not campaigning for 2015. GDI is doing thanksgiving and inauguration at the ward and LGA levels. GDI is a socio-political organisation to promote good governance and not a political party.

“Chief Wike is very successful as a minister of state for education and he is trying his best as the supervising minister of education to resolve the strike by ASUU and ASUP. Amaechi and his cohorts are behind the strike, because of their political interest, to embarrass President Jonathan, who is transforming Nigeria.

“Whether Amaechi and his co-travellers like it or not, President Jonathan will be overwhelmingly re-elected in 2015.”

The minister of state for education added that the NGF chairman was deceiving Rivers people, alleging that the government’s poorly-constructed roads in Port Harcourt and other parts of the state had become an eyesore, in spite of the huge allocations to the crude oil and gas-rich state.