Wike hits back at Atiku, withdraws approval for presidential campaign rally in Rivers

Nyesom Wike and Atiku Abubakar

The Government of Rivers state has withdrawn the approval earlier granted the Peoples’ Democratic Party, PDP, to use the Adokiye Amiesimaka Stadium in Port Harcourt for the presidential campaign rally scheduled for the 11th of February 2023.

This is contained in a letter signed by the Rivers state commissioner for sports, Christopher Green and addressed to the Director General of the PDP Presidential Campaign Council and Governor of Sokoto state, Aminu Tambuwal.

The Rivers state government claims that the PDP Campaign Council is working with the APC in the state and that allowing the campaign to hold will lead to violence.

The letter reads, “credible intelligence available to the Government of Rivers state and recent developments now show that your Presidential Campaign Organization is working in collaboration and in-cahoots with a faction of the All Progressives Congress, APC, in Rivers state led by Tonye Patrick Cole and that it is the intention of your Presidential Campaign Organization to accommodate and share the approved facility for your campaign with the said faction of the All Progressives Congress, APC”.

The letter also states that the rally will lead to violence. “Government records show that the activities of the All Progressives Congress, APC, in Rivers state have always been marred by violence due largely to irreconcilable internal conflicts within the party including shootings and killings in the course of protests arising from the nomination process of delegates for primaries”.

According to the Rivers state government, it will risk damage or destruction of the Adokiye Amiesimaka stadium which it says is a valuable asset.

The latest development comes barely two days after the PDP national leadership took over the cases filed by the Rivers state chapter of the party against the Accord and its Rivers state governorship candidate Dumo Lulu-Briggs, and that filed against the APC and its candidates in Rivers state, both of which are pending before the Court of Appeal.

Reacting to the development on Monday, the Rivers state governor, Nyesom Wike accused the national leadership of the PDP of working against him and promised to hit back.

“The people in Abuja that say they are the national have gone to collude with them to write our lawyers a letter that they should take their hands off, in order to kill the cases we filed. I have told our lawyers to withdraw from the matters. I will hit them back”.

AIT