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From Tony John, Port Harcourt
Southern Nigeria Peoples Assembly (SNPA) has berated former governor of Niger State, Babangida Aliyu, for allegedly casting aspersions on Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike, over the choice of PDP vice presidential candidate.
SNPA leader, Livingstone Wechie, in a statement in Port Harcourt, noted a television interview, where Aliyu allegedly said Wike lost the vice presidential ticket for lack of capacity, character and temperament. He described the comments credited to the former governor as unsalutary and untoward. He said the assertions by Aliyu raised a lot of concerns and failed the sensitivity test completely.
“The outburst and ungraceful cum uncomplimentary remarks by former governor of Niger State against Governor Wike of Rivers State is highly unsalutary and untoward.
“As a matter of fact, his view of Wike, an illustrious and highly celebrated Ikwerre son, is an affront not only to his ethnicity and region, but the Nigerian state, particularly in the face of the current political and economic disputations and contradictions bedevilling the Nigerian state today,” he said.
The Assembly accused Aliyu of attempting to cause disharmony in the party, at a time PDP is in dire need of fence mending.
“It is viewed with respect that Aliyu has acted far below dignity with a primordial and archaic sentiment and above all, not statesmanly. His narratives are suspicious, to say the least, curious as it appears to be aimed at fuelling crisis and fanning the embers of avoidable conflict within the ranks of PDP at a time the party should be mending walls and beg for peace after a fierce and sharp contest which shook the political atmosphere almost to a negative trajectory,” it said.
The group wondered what could have given the former governor of Niger Delta the tenacity to make uncomplimentary remarks about the Rivers State governor.
Wechie asked: “In all modesty, between a Wike and an Aliyu in the circumstance, who should be speaking of capacity, temperament or political character? The records of political profile between both figures are extremely apart as a Wike has built an unsurpassable political clout that dwarfs everything Aliyu represents and this is not in dispute.
“Governor Wike, in his capacity, is in a class of his own as the lawyers will say, sui generis. His marks must be kept close to the chest drawing from the lessons of Donald Trump’s political pedigree in the United States of America, whose feat continues to hunt American politics because of his background of not being among the ruling family or class, yet took America by storm in such unwavering propensity. It is on record that Aliyu in 2015, as an incumbent, failed to produce a successor as Niger State governor, which candidate he allegedly foisted on the PDP and went on to lose both the governorship seat to the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC), as well as his own senatorial election as a seating governor and this is quite humiliating.”
