A group within the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has called on River State Governor Nyesom Wike to give account of all his recent financial donations to members of the G-5 governors of the party.
The G-5 governors, led by Wike, have his counterparts in Benue, Oyo, Enugu and Abia States are members. They have repeatedly raised their voice against the leadership of Dr Iyorchia Ayu, the party’s National Chairman, and also refused to campaign for the presidential candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar. Their grouse mainly is that both Ayu and Atiku are from the north, leaving the south marginalised.
In a statement in Abuja on Tuesday, the Rivers State Democracy Sustainable Group (RSDSG) alleged that, from 2015 till date, the state government had received trillions of naira from Internally Generated Revenue, federal allocations, local and foreign interventions and sales of state government properties,including the gas turbine former Governor Rotimi Amaechi acquired from Holland and Saipem, but has not spent one third of the resources.
RSDSG’s convener, Mr Justin Chibuike said that the group wondered if these donations from the state’s resources were presented to the House of Assembly and approved by the lawmakers as part of budgetary allocations.
The group threatened that, “If the governor does not speak to Rivers’ people and hand over their properties back to the state, all these documents will be revealed, including sales agreements of these properties, both locally and internationally.
Chibuike said: “One may ponder the ridiculous excesses of the governor in recent times against the party that has given him everything except being the presidential candidate of the party.
“The party in its wisdom settled for the former Vice President of Nigeria, Atiku Abubakar,for their best interest but the governor has gone rogue against the party and the presidential candidate.
“We have realised that the courage to fight an unknown battle has been fully funded by the purse of Rivers State. The governor, in his bid to service the loyalty of the characters masquerading as fighters for justice in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), has resulted to throwing Rivers resources into the bellies of the fishes acting as militants in the PDP.
“Furthermore, the governor of the state should explain to Rivers people if the monies that he doles out frequently to forces outside Rivers State are duly captured and approved by the Rivers State House of Assembly in the yearly budgets of the state.
“This is of importance, because Rivers people have seen how the governor went to Lagos State to endorse the APC governor of the state against his party’s candidate and in so doing,donated the sum of N300m to the National women conference organised by the Committee of Wives of Lagos State Officials (COWLSO) at the Eko Hotels and Suites.
“Also, we’ve seen in disgust, how he attended the birthday party of his ally in Abia State, Okezie Ikpeazu, and donated the sum of N200m for no just cause. We’ve also seen recently,the donation of 25 buses each to both Cross River and Benue States PDP”.
The group, however, noted that, Rivers people were tired and could not continue “in the charade of the governor in his utter wastage that has continually underdeveloped the state at a time, when there is serious unemployment and no human capital development or empowerment to enable the youths create meaningful opportunities for themselves to grow the declining state GDP and beat the rising inflation in their state”.
