BY MAYOWA SAMUEL
Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike, on Wednesday, again tendered an apology to former National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress, Adams Oshiomhole, saying he regretted working for the re-election of Governor Godwin Obaseki of Edo State in September 2020.
Wike made the apology to Oshiomhole at the inauguration of the Rumuepirikom Flyover in the Obio-Akpor Local Government Area of the state which the ex-APC chairman commissioned.
“I use this opportunity to apologise to you. I came to Edo State to make sure your candidate didn’t win the election. I said you won’t win and you didn’t win. That assignment has been done and we now know who is who. We are now friends, let bygones be bygones,” Wike, a People’s Democratic Party governor told the smiling ex-APC national chairman.
Wike added that “I want to sincerely apologise to you. Each time you learn. People will praise you when you do for them. When you say they are wrong, they begin to say all sorts of things. I’m sure those of them in my party before cannot do anything without Wike but because I said let the right thing be done, let agreement be agreement, I have now become an enemy. These are people who were praising me morning and night,” he said.
While Oshiomhole supported Osagie Ize-Iyamu, Wike fully ensured Obaseki got the ticket of the PDP and he won reelection as Edo State governor.
He, however, fell out with Obaseki earlier in 2022. Obaseki and Wike have been at loggerheads amid a crisis rocking the PDP. While Obaseki is supporting the PDP presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, Wike continues to demand the resignation of Iyorchia Ayu as a precondition to support Atiku’s presidential ambition for 2023.
Oshiomhole, who was Edo Governor between 2008 and 2016, handed over to Obaseki, who was then a member of the APC. The two men, however, fell apart due to intra-party squabbles and Obaseki couldn’t secure an APC ticket to return to office in 2020 gotten by Osagie Ize-Iyamu.
The Rivers governor apologised to Oshiomhole for not believing him when he said Obaseki will show his true colour after he joins the PDP. Wike alleged that Obaseki was ungrateful to the party and the people who supported him to be re-elected when he left the APC. He went ahead to apologise to Oshiomole saying,
“If you check the DNA of Obaseki, what you will see in that DNA is betrayal, serial betrayal, and ungratefulness,” he said while addressing a crowd at the commissioning of a secondary school in Omuanwa community, Rivers State in March.
