Cyril Mbah, Abuja.
Chairman Rivers State Caretaker Committee of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Sir Tony Okocha has warned the state Governor Siminalayi Fubara to desist from further blackmail of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and the Federal Capital Territory Minister, Nyesom Ezenwo Wike or face the consequences of his actions.
The All Progressives Congress chieftain advised Governor Fubara to understand that no amount of continuous blackmail of President Tinubu and the FCT Minister, Nyesom Wike or the Judiciary over the recent judgement stopping allocation to the state will save him from the impending disaster.
Okocha, who made the remarks while addressing newsmen at the APC National Secretariat on Friday said sentiments can never triumph over facts in the face of the law.
He said the only valid option available to the governor was to make peace with Wike by “stooping to conquer.”
Okocha, who also described Fubara as ‘Nyesom Wike’s investment,” added that no business minded person, including Wike, will invest and allow the investment to waste pointing out that Wike practically lifted the governor from political obscurity.
When asked why the elders of the state have not intervened in the dispute to give the state some chance for development, Okocha said: “It’s foolishness for anyone to cry when they hear this call for peace and there is also this aphorism, that you don’t cry over spilled milk. Where were the elders since the crisis started? Where?
The matter is narrowing down. If you ask me; because the only other hurdle to escape now is the Supreme Court.
“What are the elders coming to do at this late hour, if they actually want to come and make peace? What are they coming to do?
They are the same people who told the governor, that you are a know-all and do-all person.They encouraged the governor to believe that his head was bigger than his pillow.
They were the ones who told him, look, your powers are elastic. What can you not do? The governor ignorantly agreed to that and today, the Ikwerre man tells you that not everybody that comes to plan your building will be part of the building.
“A lot of them have 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 now on the hot seat, So, to say to you that I don’t see that working is way, way too late.
“But we want peace.The simple thing or the only way to bring peace is for the governor to follow the law.
“If the governor had listened to the Justice Omotoso judgment, if he had listened to the counsel of Mr. President, if he had listened to the Supreme Court, I mean the Court of Appeal recently, all of this would have disappeared. What is he hiding? I keep imagining.
What is he hiding that he wants only four persons to approve for him in the budget? Four persons that will never, ever constitute a quorum?
Reacting to allegations that the governor threatened to seal off the NNPC refinery, Okocha said: “You know, a lot of things go on in the social media. I don’t want to believe that the governor said so, I don’t want to believe it.
Let me be his advocate here, I don’t want to believe because like I read the other day, they came for a rebuttal. I know the governor would not have said so, But if he had said so, too bad. “He would have inundated the airwaves with his statements.
I think he organized a press briefing and said the agreement at the president’s reconciliation meeting was not a death sentence. The serenity of that environment is not such that anybody would say, look I was cajoled, or I was coerced, or I was bamboozled.”
Continuing, Okocha said: “Some people called themselves elders of the state and said to the governor, what are you doing? Have you forgotten that you were elected and that you have immunity? Have you forgotten that you have powers? The governor came and said it is not a death sentence. How it became a death sentence on this late hour is different, something that he had said is not a death sentence. Seven of us or eight signed the documents. I came to that meeting representing the APC.
I signed on behalf of the party. There were seven or eight of us, The governor signed, the deputy governor signed, the chairman of APC signed, PDP signed, the speaker of the parliament signed, I signed. The minister was ordered to sign. The NSA was ordered to sign by Mr. President and that’s how he ruled on the matter.
“So, when I speak on this matter, I speak from the point of view of a participant and not as an observer, not as a third party.
I was there at the meeting from beginning to the end,” Okocha concluded.
