As the crisis between Rivers state governor, Similayi Fubara and Minister of the Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA), Nysom Wike festers, the Progressive Yoruba Youth Congress has called on President Bola Tinubu to call Wike to order.
The group at a world press conference held in Lagos Sunday, admonished President Tinubu not to allow Wike soil his name with his ego – driven fight against Governor Fubara.
The press conference addressed by the national coordinator of the group, Prince Akintunde Adedeji, reads: “We are bringing President Tinubu’s attention to the reading we are getting from the onslaught on democracy in Rivers state by no other person than his appointee, the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Mr. Nyesom Wike, who has continued to attempt calling the shots in the state where he was the immediate past governor from the seat of his current assignment in Abuja.
“The impression is that President Tinubu empowered Wike with a powerful cabinet position by way of the Minister of the FCT and placed unlimited financial resources at his disposal by waiving the Treasury Single Account policy for him. By controlling the FCT’s treasury unfettered, he then has unlimited funds to destabilise Rivers state or sack the state governor, Sim Fubara.
“This impression takes on an air of credibility as people argue that Wike is desperate to hijack Rivers state from the People Democratic Party (PDP) and present to President Tinubu’s All Progressives Congress (APC) as a bounty of war. To date, we are concerned that there has been no categorical statement distancing Mr President from Wike’s actions. Such disavowal of Wike by President Tinubu would have helped law enforcement agencies and other stakeholders in the Rivers imbroglio to appropriately calibrate their actions to align with global best practices and constitutional provisions.
“For instance, the 27 Rivers state House of Assembly former members who vacated their seats after crossing from the PDP to APC, ostensibly at Wike’s prompting, are reportedly heading to court sometime tomorrow or the day after tomorrow.
“They intend to go judicial shopping in the hope that they would get a pliable High Court to rule that they have not lost their seats by decamping even when the Supreme Court had conclusively ruled on the matter in favour of Section 109 (g) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
“They have reportedly written a judgment that they are trying to have Justice Donatus Okorowo, a vacation judge of the Federal High Court, Abuja, deliver such that he will hold that they should retain their position even after leaving the political party on whose platform they were elected.
“This would violate the directive of the National Judicial Council for judges on the lower courts not to overturn rulings of the Supreme Court.”