The Rivers State Government yesterday described as false media reports quoting Governor Nyesom Wike as saying that the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Asiwaju Ahmed Bola Tinubu, offered him a senatorial ticket.
The government, in a statement signed by Wike’s Special Assistant, Media, Kelvin Ebiri, said that there was no time during the governor’s media chat on Friday he made such a statement.
He said the story was false, baseless and ludicrous as the Rivers State governor “throughout the media chat never mentioned the name of the APC presidential candidate or alluded to him offering him a senatorial ticket.”
Attached to the statement was the transcript of Wike’s interview in which he said: ‘First of all, this is how you know those who are prepared to run an election. Some of them collected presidential form at the same time collected senatorial form. You’ll know that those people are not serious to run.
‘I never collected senatorial form. Even after the whole thing, people said come and go for Senate, I said no, I won’t do that. I’ve already made a commitment that this Senate ticket should be zoned to this area (Etche) because they’ve never had it before. I must not be in power.’
Ebiri urged the unsuspecting public not to give any credence to “this false, baseless and ill motivated reports.”
Meanwhile, Wike travelled to London shortly after his Friday media parley.
With him in London is Governor Samuel Ortom of Benue State.
Atiku won’t sacrifice anybody to satisfy ‘autocratic democrats’ -Melaye
Chief spokesperson of the Atiku Abubakar Campaign Organisation, Senator Dino Melaye, said yesterday that the PDP flag bearer would not sacrifice those elected by the party just to please those he labeled autocratic democrats.
Melaye in a statement against the backdrop of the latest demand for the resignation of the PDP National Chairman, Dr. Iyorchia Ayu by Governor Wike, declared that Atiku would do that which is right and lose the support of some party members than playing to the gallery to please autocratic democrats.