By Lanre Oloyede
Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Rivers State, Sir Tony Okocha, has stated that blaming President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the Minister of the FCT, Nyesom Wike, and the Judiciary for the recent judgement of the Federal high court restraining the Central Bank of Nigeria from releasing allocations to the state won’t save the embattled governor Siminalayi Fubara.
The party chieftain stated this while addressing a press conference Friday at the APC National Secretariat in Abuja, stressing that the law of the land “does not recognise sentiments, but facts as presented in the case.”
Okocha specifically said Governor Sim Fubara “is Nyesom Wike’s investment,” adding that Wike practically lifted Fubara from political obscurity.
“Wike brought Fubara to where he’s today. He lifted him from obscurity to political crescendo. Nobody is suffocating anybody. The fight in Rivers state is between Sim Fubara and Sim Fubara,” he said.
He said that the political crisis in Rivers would have ended if Governor Fubara had obeyed President Tinubu’s intervention.
Okocha said further that Governor Fubara “has been running the state without an approved budget which is against the law of the land, but those playing up unnecessary sentiments failed to see the illegality going on under the governor.”
When asked for the way out, the APC caretaker chair said the governor must obey the law of the land, including the law regarding the budget of a state.
According to him, “Sections 120, 121, 122 speak to this issue regarding budget clearly.”
“As a political party, the All Progressives Congress, we stand with and by the judgement of the court because it is what will hold sway in civil society, it is the court, not one man’s morality.
“We also use this opportunity to speak against attempts to disparage innocent persons namely: Nyesom Wike, the FCT minister; the president. In all the cases in court, there are about 32 cases; he is not a party to any. So, why bring in the president?”
On the recent attempt by some stakeholders and elders in the Niger Delta to reconcile the gladiators in the crisis, Okocha said such a move was already too late.
“I say it’s foolish for anyone to cry when the head is off. There is also this aphorism that you don’t cry over spilled milk. Where had these elders been? Where? The matter is narrowing down, if you ask me, because the only other hurdle to escape is the Supreme Court.
“What are the elders going to do at this late hour, if they actually would want to come? What are they coming to do? They are the same people who told the governor that ‘you are a know-all and do-all,’ they encouraged the governor to believe that his head was bigger than his pillow.
“They were the ones – they told him, ‘look, your powers are elastic, what can you not do?’ And the governor agreed to that and today, the Ikweri man tells you that not everybody that comes to plan your building will be part of the building.
“No. A lot of them had disappeared into thin air at the time they came to counsel the governor against the decision that he signed to, they had lined their pockets. And the governor is on the hot seat. So, to say to you that I don’t see that working is way, way too late.
“But I wish. We want peace, Simple things. See, the only way to bring peace is to follow the law.”