Wike, Amaechi resume fight over Igbo votes for guber candidates

Ahead of Saturday’s governorship and House of Assembly elections, the two political actors in Rivers State, Governor Nyesom Wike and former Minister of Transportation and a leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in state, Chibuike Amaechi, have resumed their rivalry.

This time, the duo are jostling for votes from the Igbo community of the state.

Amaechi had earlier met with the community during a stakeholders meeting in Port Harcourt, assuring them that their properties, including houses lost during the civil war between 1967-1970, would be given back to them if they vote right.

He noted that if the Igbo, who left their properties in Lagos and in the North got them back, the ones in Rivers State should not be an exception.

He, therefore, urged them to come out en masse and vote for the APC governorship candidate, Tonye Cole, on Saturday.

But few days after, Wike also organised an interactive meeting with Technical Dealers Association of Nigeria, Computer Dealers Association, Garrison Phone Dealers Association and Building Materials Traders Association, who are majorly Igbo, in Port Harcourt.

He cautioned them against yielding to provocative utterances that can instigate violence by Amaechi.

Wike cited Amaechi’s promise to return property seized during Nigeria’s civil war over 50 years ago as one reason the electorate should be wary of the APC candidate, Cole.

He insisted that Cole and Amaechi are insensitive to the danger the animosity they were trying to resurrect will engender in the state because of their alleged inordinate and dubious quest for power.

Wike urged the Igbos to be wary of Amaechi, who served as Minister of Transportation for over seven years, but allegedly failed to revive eastern ports and railway lines from Enugu-Aba-Port Harcourt.

The governor, while canvassing support for the PDP, announced the allocation of 150 plots of land to the Computer Dealers Association and 30 plots to Computer Dealers Association to develop an industrial park in Port Harcourt.

Meanwhile, an APC chieftain, Chief Eze Chukwuemeka Eze, in a statement yesterday, commended the Igbo community in Rivers State for allegedly adopting the governorship candidate of the APC for the rescheduled governorship and House of Assembly election in the state.

In a statement made available to newsmen, Eze claimed the Igbo community in the state made a donation of N20 million as their contribution to the governorship project of the APC candidate.