Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike, has said the Group of Five (G-5) governors of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) have crossed the rubicon, and no longer disposed to any reconciliation with the national leadership of the party.
He said contrary to insinuations that the G-5 governors were working at cross-purposes, the group, remains intact.
He stated this, yesterday, at a media briefing in Port Harcourt, saying none of the G-5 governors has attended PDP presidential campaigns in their states.
He said those who have chosen to ignore the G-5 and other members of the Integrity Group, would realise they made a grave mistake after the February 25 presidential poll when their impact would have been greatly felt by them.
“Even before Enugu governor received him (Atiku) in Government House, we knew about it. We cannot tell you the approach. Forget about what people are saying, (February) 25th is here. Everybody will see it. We can’t do that again (reconciliation); it is over. We have said it and there is nothing anybody can do about it now. They believe that they have won the election, so they don’t need us, I am not ready to sit down again with anybody.”
The Rivers Governor who said he has no apology to offer for hosting the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential candidate, Bola Tinubu, and other leaders of the party in Port Harcourt on Wednesday, however, declined to mention his preferred presidential candidate.
He said PDP leaders in Rivers State have already taken a position on whom the state will vote for, and that the decision had been communicated to party stalwarts and supporters.
Wike reiterated he would never leave the PDP boasting he remains one of the most relevant member of the party.
On the refusal of the PDP to hold its presidential campaign in Rivers State, the governor said members of Presidential Campaign Council in the state lack edhonour and were devious.
He claimed that after collecting money from some governors to organise the Port Harcourt rally, the PCC members, who he claimed lacked the capacity to mobilise the crowd for the event, decided to cook up an outlandish conspiracy theory of insecurity in the state.
Meanwhile, Wike has flayed President Muhammadu Buhari’s broadcast, yesterday, where he outlawed the old N500 and N1,000 notes as legal tenders saying the decision was tantamount to interference with a pending lawsuit in the Supreme Court.
He described Buhari’s directive to the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to reintroduce only the old N200 note into the economy as an affront on the Supreme Court.
He said the president who ideally should be the epitome ofthe rule to law, regrettably took deliberate steps to undermine the integrity of the Supreme Court, whose interim injunction on the naira swap matter was still subsisting and should be respected by he Federal Government.
“As far as i am concerned, this is a complete interference, which is not good for our democracy.”
He said that the Federal Government’s claim that the naira redesign policy would curb corruption and vote buying was not tenable.