•Says no one has guts to tell him he’s not a PDP member, alleges George is ground rent debtor 

•APC accuses Atiku, El-Rufai, Amaechi of desperation to grab power for self-aggrandizement 

•Dickson warns Nigerians against opposition conspiracy that won’t change Nigeria

ChuksOkocha, OlawaleAjimotokanandAdedayoAkinwale in Abuja

Minister of the FCT, NyesomWike, has declared himself as an asset and not a liability to President Bola Tinubu, saying he would support the president’s second term bid in 2027.

He, however, boasted that no one in the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), had the guts to tell him he was not a member of the party, just as he accused a former deputy national chairman of the party, Chief Olabode George, of owing ground rent in Abuja.

In a related development, the All Progressives Congress (APC), has said the trio of former Vice-President AtikuAbubakar, a former governor of Kaduna State, MallamNasir El-Rufai, and a former Minister of Transportation, Hon. RotimiAmaechi were only united in desperation to grab power for self-aggrandizement.

At the same time, a former governor of Bayelsa State, Siraake Dickson, has warned Nigerians to be beware of those that conspired against former Goodluck Jonathan as their conspiracies have yet to change Nigeria and Nigerians.

Speaking during a media chat in Abuja, Wike assured the people that he would lead the campaign of the APC for the election of Tinubu in Rivers State, where the president did not get up to 10 per cent of the votes in the 2023 presidential election.

“You have seen me here. I said, I will support Asiwaju. The way we won other elections that is the way we will win. I am not a liability. I am an asset. Whether you agree or you don’t agree, I am an asset.

“Whether you want to die, you don’t want to die, I am an asset. You may not like me, your likeness has nothing to make me. I am an asset to making sure that Tinubu wins second tenure.

“Are you not aware that I will lead the campaign in Rivers State? Oh, you want me to deny? Are you not aware that he did not get up to 10 per cent there but he will win there. Of course, is that hidden? Because I have said the south must produce the president,” Wike said.

He said the PDP might not survive the current internal acrimony within the party, saying he would ensure that the party did not die.

He attributed the gale of defections hitting the party particularly in Delta and AkwaIbom states to party leadership problem and lack of intelligence gathering.

“You won’t tell me that they didn’t have intelligence that Delta will go. You won’t tell me that they didn’t have intelligence that AkwaIbom will go. Now, leadership what would you do? Send a team to ask but ‘Why are you doing this’?

“No, you’re making a mistake. This is impunity instead you say ‘Let them go’. Look, opposition does not do impunity. Put everybody together. You don’t say, let them go. Let me tell you, they are playing to the gallery. I cannot do that. the more you look, the less you see.”

Wike also blasted his predecessor, RotimiAmaechi, of using his 60th birthday anniversary to lie to Nigerians and insulting the people that hunger has increased among Nigerians under the Renewed Hope Agenda.

“Let us tell ourselves this. He was Speaker 1999 to 2007 and if anybody knows, he was the most pompous speaker, then he was reading law in London as a speaker.

“He became a governor 2007 to 2015 he was still reading law in London. Eight years as speaker, Rivers State Assembly, eight years as governor he never talked about hunger.

“He became a minister from 2015 to 2023, eight years, super Minister of Transport, where you are borrowing money from Afreximbank, he didn’t talk about hunger.

“Two years, you have left office, and in a coalition because he is hungry. You’re only hungry for power. And that shows failure on his part. How do you look at this, how do you insult Nigerians?”

He accused Amaechi of trivialising hunger and poverty by insulting Nigerians in the process.

“You join Atiku, you join El-Rufai because you are hungry. Have you not insulted Nigerians? It’s just that you can’t stay out of power. That’s the hunger.

“You can’t stay out of power. How would a man who served 1999 to 2023 stand before Nigerians, who presided over billions of Naira.

“This was the same man who, on a national television, told Nigeria he doesn’t like money meanwhile dollar was showing him, you are carrying dollar, and you are telling Nigerians you don’t like eh, money.

“What kind of country is this? And we are listening to that, and you said, he is influential? What is influence? You know, we overrate people. He was governor 2015 he couldn’t produce a successor.

“He couldn’t give his candidate, MuhammaduBuhari common 25 per cent. He was a sitting minister in 2019, no president had ever moved with soldiers the way he came with soldiers. He said he produced the governor. He couldn’t produce a candidate.

“Again, his candidate, Buhari, didn’t get 25 per cent and he was the DG of campaign. Again, in 2023, he came, okay, this time around, ‘I’m going to support Atiku in PDP’. Thank God we did not support PDP.

“If I supported PDP and they won, you would have taken the glory but we say okay we will not support PDP. They failed. They didn’t even get 10 per cent. So, what is his influence?” Wike said.

He, however, declared that no one within the PDP has the authority or political capital to question his membership or chase him out of the party.

He dismissed criticisms about his loyalty, saying he remained one of the most consistent and hardworking members of the PDP.

“I am still in the PDP. I have not seen anybody who would have the guts to tell me, ‘You are not a member of the PDP.’ Who is that? What is his contribution to the party more than me?” he said.

Wike also berated PDP stalwart, Chief Bode George, for refusing to pay tax on his property in Abuja, saying George’s name was number 3,092 on the list of persons published in national newspapers, who had defaulted in paying ground rent from one to 10 years.

He berated the former National Chairman of PDP over his remark regarding the sealing of the PDP National Secretariat over inability to pay ground rent.

“I said, look ground rent. On that number 3,092, you know who is going to be there? OlabodeIbiyinka George. His number is 3,092. At that level, a senior citizen.

“I travelled three days and signed 1,5000 C of Os and over 700 consent documents. You come and collect C of O, you take it and go and do business and collect money from the bank. Then you sit, that they have not reminded you, that you suppose to pay money.

“What kind of a citizen is that? You know you are a debtor. You took loans from bank. You say the bank has not reminded me,” Wike said.

The minister said Nigerian property owners abroad paid their taxes because they realise that government would take over their property, but while in Nigeria they believed nothing would happen.

He decried the attitude, noting that such attitude of religion and ethnicity has destroyed the country and kept it where it is today.

APC: Atiku, El-Rufai, Amaechi Desperate to Grab Power for Self-aggrandizement

The All Progressives Congress (APC) has said the trio of former Vice-President AtikuAbubakar, a former governor of Kaduna State, MallamNasir El-Rufai, and a former Minister of Transportation, Hon. RotimiAmaechi were united in desperation to grab power for self-aggrandizement.

National Publicity Secretary of the APC, Felix Morka, in a statement yesterday rejected allegation that the government of President Bola Tinubu was “weaponising” poverty by not eradicating the scourge in two years.

The statement was reportedly made at a public lecture held in Abuja on Saturday to mark the 60th birthday anniversary celebration of Amaechi, a former governor.

“But the celebration quickly dissolved into an occasion for Amaechi, AlhajiAtikuAbubakar, former Vice President, and MallamNasir El-Rufai, former Governor of Kaduna State and former Minister of the Federal Capital Territory —leading displaced rent-seekers — to showcase their frenzied desperation to grab power purely for their self-aggrandizement.

“These three individuals have occupied Nigeria’s highest political offices between 1999 and 2023, either as Vice President, Governors, or Ministers, among other important positions.

“In all 24 years, the trio, individually or collectively, could not and did not eradicate poverty in their states or the country. They did not even attempt to address, let alone tackle the structural challenges and distortions that stifled the economy and worsened poverty over the years.

“Rather, they reveled in mindless rent-seeking behaviour, sold national assets to their cronies for mere pittance, engaged in corrupt and wasteful expenditures in their states, and relentlessly sponsored state violence against their own people. 

“Take the case of Amaechi, the celebrant, who served for an unbroken total of 24 years – eight years as Speaker of the Rivers State House of Assembly, eight years as Governor of Rivers State, and eight years as Minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

“That’s about a quarter of a century of freeloading by Amaechi on state resources, with absolutely no record of attempting to combat poverty in his Rivers  State or the country,” he said.

Morka stressed that when Amaechi declared, “I am hungry,” he must be understood to mean that “he is hungry and desperate to return to his felt entitled dependency on state resources and patronage.

“That he is hungry barely two years out of office simply underscores the depth of the self-serving motivations of Amaechi and his coalition partners in their quest for power for selfish exploitation, and not for the interest of the people.

“Nigerians see right through their disruptive politicking. Amaechi and his cohorts are losing their grip on the economy. Accustomed to fleecing the economy, they are now compelled by Tinubu’s unprecedented reforms to adapt to a new reality, where hard work, productivity, and innovation are rewarded,” he said.

The ruling party maintained that their criticisms of Tinubu’s reforms were decidedly self-serving, driven by a desperate quest for power to satiate their voracious rent-seeking appetite, which has long stifled and denied progress to the economy.

Morka added that the erstwhile artificially overvalued Naira stifled local production, encouraged import dependency, and exacerbated poverty.

He said, ironically, Atiku and Peter Obi, who had become vociferous, criticisingTinubu’s policies, amassed their wealth from the very import-dependent system they were desperately trying to preserve.

The spokesperson noted: “Atiku, a former Custom Officer, and Obi, a successful importer, reaped enormous benefits from the old system. Their criticisms reek of special interest masqueraded as concern for the people.

“By allowing market forces to determine Naira’s value, the administration is taking necessary bold steps to catalyse economic growth, incentivise investment, boost competitiveness, and alleviate poverty.”

The party insisted that in two years, Tinubu’s administration had demonstrated the political will to tackle structural barriers to the country’s economic growth and development far more than any other president in Nigeria’s modern history.

The ruling party stressed that by his bold economic reforms, Tinubu was systematically building the most potent bulwark against poverty and positioning the economy to deliver sustained and sustainable growth and prosperity for all Nigerians.

His words: “The criticisms variously leveled by Amaechi, Atiku, El-Rufai and Peter Obi mask a shameless attempt to perpetuate and cling to the old rent-seeking economy that enriched them at the expense of the Nigerian people.

“As beneficiaries of the corrupt and inefficient economic system, they are  discomforted that Tinubu’s reforms are dismantling the insidious and permissive system that enabled and sustained their reckless plunder and exploitation of the economy.”

Dickson Warns against Opposition Conspiracy That Won’t Change Nigeria

A former governor of Bayelsa State, Seriake Dickson, has warned Nigerians to be beware of those that conspired against former Goodluck Jonathan as their conspiracies have yet to change Nigeria and Nigerians.

He urged Nigerians to shine their eyes on those who described themselves as conspirators because the last conspiratorial theory from them has not changed anything.

Dickson, in a subtle warning, told his political colleagues to be mindful of the choices they make, adding that their past conspiracy and coalition, which removed the Peoples Democratic Party and Goodluck Jonathan from office in 2015, has not favoured Nigerians.

“When I came in here and climbing up here, I’ve seen a lot of you. And as my brother said, there are a number of you who are expert conspirators, who know how to assemble coalitions and then take out governments, as you did to my party in 2015.

“And when you did so, particularly to a clueless government, so-called, now 11 years down the line, we thought that there would have been no weaponisation of poverty and that all the challenges of Nigeria would have been gone.

“And the only advice I can give, not being a professional coalition builder and conspirator as some of you are, is at this time, shine your eyes.”