Wike said Nigerians vindicated his caucus by voting for a southern president-elect in the person of Tinubu.
By Jeffrey Agbo
Rivers State Governor Nyesom Wike has claimed that his predecessor, Rotimi Amaechi, and the governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Tonye Cole, were not in support of their party’s presidential candidate, Bola Tinubu.
Tinubu surprisingly polled the highest votes in Rivers compared to his rivals. Many have accused the governor of falsifying results but he has denied the allegations.
Wike told Rivers people in a state broadcast on Thursday that “Rotimi Amaechi and his protégé, Tonye Cole, actively opposed the demand for power shift to the South and worked against their party’s presidential candidate in Rivers State.”
“When the President-Elect emerged as the winner, Tonye Cole rushed to congratulate him on his Instagram handle but deleted the post when he was criticised,” he added.
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Back in June 2022, Tinubu trounced bigwigs in the APC like Amaechi, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, and Senate President Ahmad Lawan to clinch the party’s ticket.
Wike further accused his predecessor, saying he “failed as Governor of Rivers State for eight years” and “could not attract any single development project to Rivers State as Minister for Transportation for seven years”.
He alleged that Amaechi and the APC planned to overrun and disrupt the elections in Rivers ahead of Saturday’s governorship and state assembly polls, noting that the security agencies had been notified.
Wike, a member of the G5 or Integrity Group within the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), said Nigerians vindicated his caucus by voting for a southern president-elect in the person of Tinubu, a former Lagos State governor as against his party’s Atiku Abubakar who is from Adamawa State in North-East Nigeria.
Amaechi has not responded to the allegations against him as of press time.