Wike’s appointment of 200,000 aides to buy votes –Rivers APC spokesman

Forum 1 year ago

Wike’s appointment of 200,000 aides to buy votes –Rivers APC spokesman

The Publicity Secretary of the All Progressives Congress in Rivers State, Darlington Nwauju, shares his thoughts with DENNIS NAKU on the nullification of the party’s primaries in the state among and other issues

How prepared is the Rivers All Progressives Congress for the 2023 general elections and does the party have what it takes to win?

Let me without equivocation tell you that the APC in Rivers State is working very hard across the 319 polling wards in the state. We are working hard to win. We are not contesting the 2023 elections for the sake of participating in the polls. We are working hard to take the trophy and by the special grace of God, we will. The past seven years of the outgoing administration has convinced the people of Rivers State that the Peoples Democratic Party has nothing more to offer other than the daily soap operas that we have been treated to. In our beloved Rivers State, non-accountability has become the order of the day; contracts are awarded impulsively so much so that humongous projects are awarded without recourse to the Procurement Act or due process; in the past seven years, unemployment level in the state has been rising and this has earned us the second on the unemployment index published by the National Bureau of Statistics.

In Rivers State today, promises were made of employment of whether 10,000 or 5,000 people, but mysteriously, less than four months to the next elections, the state government flies a purely political kite by purporting to appoint 200,000 special assistants in order to hoodwink Rivers people and buy their votes. Seriously, The Rivers APC has been armed with more than enough campaign materials. I say to you again, we are contesting to win.

But presently, there is a court judgment which nullified APC primaries and sacked all its candidates…

With due respect to the judgment of Justice Emmanuel Obile’s court, our party cannot be stopped from contesting and winning the 2023 elections in Rivers State. All attempts at stopping all other political parties except the PDP are geared towards having an open goalpost to score against the run of play, and these shall fall flat. A popular government or political party will not resort to deploying state resources to stop other parties from contesting against her. Why are they afraid of a contest? But to answer your question directly, the cases brought against the Rivers State APC were matters pertaining to our (APC) internal affairs and the Supreme Court had in March 2021 in a case between Dele Moses, four others and the APC declared that political parties were like clubs and that no court had the jurisdiction to protect the rights and privileges of members of a club.

So, the APC in Rivers State is not afraid of the courts as we have implicit faith and belief in the judiciary in Nigeria not to yield itself to the shenanigans of lazy politicians to deny Rivers people the opportunity for a genuine alternative. We believe that even though our matters get to the Supreme Court, Nigerians shall see that with a dispassionate consideration of our matters, justice shall come to us because we know that those who took us to court do not have their names in the membership register of our great party. Justice shall surely come because the civil servants in Rivers State deserve to be motivated with promotions. Pensioners deserve to be paid, scholarships have to be reintroduced and permanent solutions must be found to the perennial flooding challenge in the Orashi region.

Again, security must be ensured for business owners and more investments need to be attracted to the state to increase our internally generated revenue; and primary health centres must be resuscitated across the 23 local government areas. I can go on and on. A cosmopolitan state like Rivers deserves better and cannot continue to be held down by the intimidation and exclusivity that we see today in the governance of our state.

Will the former Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi be leading the Rivers APC campaigns?

The leader of our party in Rivers State is a dedicated party man and shall attend party functions as occasions and time demand. You must know he is never afraid to lead from the front.

Why has he (Amaechi) been quiet over developments in the state APC and issues concerning the state?

This is a funny question because when he talks, people say he should have kept quiet and when he chooses to stay calm, people keep asking this question you just asked. Our leader is a man of great wisdom; he will talk when necessary and you will hear him.

The state governor recently increased the number of his special advisers from 100,000 to 200,000. What is your reaction to that?

On the appointment of 200,000 special advisers by the state governor and his PDP administration, let me say that it is purely a political move to buy votes ahead of the elections, four months to the 2023 general elections. Are you aware that appointment to the office of a special assistant require that such a fellow should have to make public his/her assets through the Code of Conduct Bureau? Have you heard of any of these persons approaching the CCB office in Port Harcourt? Again, these appointments are reserved just for members of the PDP. Like I have said before, it is purely targeted at vote-buying, ballot snatching and intimidation of political opponents at the polling units. The list of SAs is peopled by known roughnecks and certified cultists. The question we want to ask the outgoing governor and his court jesters is how sustainable these appointments are.

Where in the state’s budget is the appropriation for this outlandish appointment? Factually and legally, is it right for the governor of a state who has powers under Section 206 to make appointments of his personal staff to overstretch the obligations of the state just to massage his political ego? If the state were so rich to cater conveniently for this latest obligation, how come the state still owes teachers of the state owned demonstration secondary schools? How come the state still owes, for close to five years, the salaries of Rivers State Sustainable Development Agency staff?

How about the stipends of volunteers of the Rivers State Neighbourhood Safety Corps which the Wike administration set up? How about payment of bursary for students in tertiary institutions which was a norm under the past administrations? How about the Rivers State Road Traffic Management Authority? How about the Songhai Farms and all those engaged in that agriculture project? How come the state cannot afford to maintain street lights in the city of Port Harcourt? The list is endless and Rivers people know that this (appointment of 200,000 aides) is a Greek gift conjured to cover up for the issues bordering on joblessness or youth unemployment