Onyedi Gabriel, Port Harcourt
Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike, has said that God used him to make the Transport Minister, Rotimi Amaechi governor of the state.
Speaking to BBC Pidgin at the weekend in Port Harcourt, the governor also said he would not support former President Goodluck Jonathan even if he secured the presidential ticket of the All Progressives Congress to contest the 2023 election.
Wike mocked Amaechi for calling him his former employee saying that the Transport Minister would not have governed the state if God had not used him to make Amaechi a governor at that time.
He said Amaechi had forgotten when he said in a church that after God in his life, the second person was he (Wike), adding that he was at liberty to choose any position in Amaechi’s government because of his contributions.
He said Amaechi wanted to make him a commissioner but that he rejected it and opted for a Chief of Staff.
He said: “I was not close to Amaechi, we were just in the same party and in politics everybody has ambition. He has his own. I don’t regret that as at that time, we preferred him to be governor.
“We fought it and God crowned our efforts and he became a governor. He is in APC and I am in PDP. So, don’t expect me to support what he is doing in APC. He said I was his employee. What he said was not good. God used me to make him the governor.
“I will give you a tape where Amaechi spoke in Church saying after God, I came next. But when he spoke the other day, he said I was his staff, his employee. No problem but an employee that dealt with him here.
“In 2015 to 2019 Buhari did not have 20 per cent here, that is his employee. Your employee stopped you from giving the president 25 per cent. Your staff stopped you from winning governorship election and stopped you from having one Senator.
“He said I would only be governor over his dead body. But up until now I am still looking for that dead body. I have won everything. I told him he won’t have a candidate and he didn’t have. I told him he won’t have a senator and an assembly member and he didn’t have. Even a House of Representative member he didn’t have. How can an employee defeat you like that”.
Wike said even Jonathan knew that he (Wike) would work against him if he joined the APC and clinched the party’s ticket to run for the Presidency in 2023.
He said: “I am a PDP member, if former President Goodluck Jonathan picks a ticket to run in my party, I will support him. I can’t do anti-party. But if he picks a ticket to run in APC, I won’t support because, I can’t do anti-party.
“He knows I won’t support him in APC even if he is from the South. I don’t do that kind of politics. It is party we are talking about and I don’t play ethnicity”.