FG Owes Rivers Apology For Neglecting State In 2015 – Wike

Nyesom Wike, governor of Rivers, says the federal government must tender an apology to the people of over the role it played in the crisis that engulfed the state in 2015.

Wike said this at the on Thursday at the opening of the government house clinic and administrative building in Port Harcourt, the state capital.

Wike said he reached out to President Muhammadu Buhari in 2015 to help in tackling insecurity in Rivers, but was ignored.

While Wike did not give details of his visit the president, Rivers became the hotbed of violence in the aftermath of the April 2015 governorship election.

At the time, Rivers was said to have experienced the highest record of violence following bloody clashes between members of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the All Progressives Congress (APC).

Wike, who contested on the platform of the PDP, had succeeded Rotimi Amaechi of the APC — two years before the election, Amaechi had defected from the PDP.

However, according to Wike, noted that the state is now peaceful, despite what he described as lack of support from the federal government.

He said he told the federal government that if it didn’t apologise to Rivers over the 2015 crisis which escalated because of its indifference to the state’s plight, they will never see peace and that’s why the country is betide with security woes.

“In 2015, when we came on board, there were so many insecurities in the state. I was shouting. I ran to the federal government. I said ‘look, help me; give special forces, as I heard you give to others.’ They said ‘no’,” the governor said.

“So, I came back home and told our people: ‘everybody, kneel down and pray and call God’.

“I told them if they do not appeal and apologise to Rivers state, they will never see peace, and that is what is happening in this country, because they felt this state should go down.

“Their governors were saying we are killing APC people; that the kidnappers were PDP; that we’re killing APC people. Today, what is happening in Kaduna? What is happening in Borno? What is happening in Ondo? What is happening in all areas? Rivers state is peaceful.

“I challenged them whether they gave me one support one day, nobody agreed.”

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