Rivers Assembly Moves Against Atiku Loyalist Celestine Omehia Over N698m Allowance

Despite alleged peace moves from the Presidential Candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Atiku Abubakar, to present a united party during the general election campaign, Rivers State governor, Nyesom Wike, has stepped up his fight to ensure Atiku either listens to his demands or pays for it.

While he has so far successfully led the Group of 5 governors to boycott the presidential campaign of the PDP, and ignored ongoing consultative meetings with stakeholders, the governor has continued to move against loyalists of the former Vice President.

The Rivers State House of Assembly has moved to derecognise Celestine Omehia as a former governor of the state through a resolution reversing an earlier resolution of June 2015.

In the heat of the political fight in 2015 soon after becoming governor, Wike had caused the 8th Assembly to recognize Omehia as governor in order to spite his predecessor, Rotimi Amaechi.

But Amaechi’s political differences with then President Goodluck Jonathan, forced him (Amaechi) who was governor at the time to move to the All Progressives Congress, APC, and led the party to victory over incumbent President Jonathan in 2015.

While Wike, who was Minister of State for Education, fell out with Ameachi by supporting President Jonathan, he quickly made up with Omehia by causing the 8th Assembly to pass a resolution recognising him as a former governor.

By that act, Omehia started receiving all the benefits accruable to former governors.

However, the political differences on account of the G-5’s demand that the National Chairman of the PDP, Iyorchia Ayu, resign to allow for a new chairman from the South West, has forced new realignment in the party.

While Wike alongside four governors has insisted that Ayu must go, Atiku has refused to buy into those demands, forcing them to withdraw their support for the PDP candidate’s quest to emerge as president in 2023.

Atiku’s search for new support in those five states of Rivers, Oyo, Benue, Enugu and Abia, has exposed those not supporting Wike to repeated attacks with the governor threatening to “deal with those who think they can go to Abuja and work against us. If they are not with us, they are against us. And we will deal with them.”

The governor had in August reportedly declared Omehia a persona non grata alongside some top PDP members in the state.

Those he has repeatedly accused of supporting Atiku include former National Chairman of the party, Uche Secondus, former deputy speaker of the House of Representatives, Austin Opara, and former Chairman of the Senate Committee on Petroleum Resources (Upstream), Senator Lee Ledogo Maeba amongst others from the state.

THE WHISTLER has seen Maeba at several PDP functions in Abuja including the official inauguration of the PDPPCC on the 28 and 29 of September, a top event of the party, Wike and his group boycotted.

However to ensure those supporting Atiku in the state are punished as he promised, the state Assembly in a motion submitted by the Leader of the House, Martin Amaewmule, who represents Obio/Akpor Constituency 1, passed four prayers against Omehia.

The House proceeded to pass the prayers which include that, the House rescind its earlier decision to recognise Omehia, that Omehia stops using the title His Excellency, that Omehia stops using the acronym GSSRS, Grand Service Star of Rivers State, that incumbent and former governors of the state are honoured with, and that Omehia refunds all monetary entitlements received including the sum of N600 million in benefit and N96.5 million in pension he has so far received from the Rivers State as at September 2022 within 7 days.

The motion, which was seconded by the Whip of the House, Evans Bipi saw all the 21 members present at the plenary voting in support of the four prayers including the representative of Omehia’s constituency in Ikwerre Local Government Area, Anselm Oguguo.

Omehia was not immediately available for comment but Maeba could not answer calls made to his phone.

The spokesman of the PDP, Dabo Ologunagba, also did not respond to text messages sent to his telephone line as at the time of filing this report. Calls put to his line failed to connect.

Wike had accused Ayu of working against his presidential ambition by hailing Sokoto State Governor, Aminu Tambuwal, as the “hero of the convention” that produced Atiku as candidate.

Wike came second in the May Presidential election primary of the party.

Tambuwal had stepped down in the last minutes to support Atiku.

The Wike camp has also said the National Chairman of the party cannot come from the same zone with the presidential candidate of the party, saying there must be equity in the distribution of the party’s positions.

Attempts to resolve the impasse have been unsuccessful even as Ayu has refused to step down. Few days ago, there was another attempt to break the jinx as the Chairman of the party’s Board of Trustees, Adolphus Wabara, led delegates to a meeting with Wike, but failed to broker a resolution.