BIAFRA : Wike says Dickson plans to defect to APC to avoid EFCC arrest

Rivers State governor Nyesom Wike has accused his Bayelsa counterpart Seriake Dickson of planning to join the All Progressives Congress (APC) to avoid arrest by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) for corruption at the end of his tenure.

“Dickson concluded plans to join the APC…(and) colluded with these people so that EFCC will not arrest him when he leaves Government,” Wike said in a statement by his media aide Simeon Nwakaudu.

Both governors of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) but have been at loggerheads since the party lost the Bayelsa State governorship election to the APC in November.

The feud between both governors got heightened after a Federal High Court sitting in Abuja ruled that Rivers State owns the contested Soku Oil Wells/Fields between Rivers State and Bayelsa State.

Dickson accused Wike of “merely using the disputed oil wells between the two sister states as a mere subterfuge to create disunity and ethnic disharmony in Ijaw land in pursuit of a clandestine ethnic supremacist agenda in the politics of Rivers State.”

Wike argued that the National Boundary Commission (NBC) in 2012 altered the boundary between Bayelsa and Rivers State in the 11th Edition of the Administrative Map of Nigeria.

He opined that the NBC made a mistake by shifting the boundary from River Santa Barbara to River St Batholomew which the NBC acknowledged in a letter to the Supreme Court.

Wike said seven years after the Supreme Court gave the order, the NBC was yet to effect the correction.

“We had to sue the NBC to enforce the order of the Supreme Court, where they were directed to ensure that the Boundary Between Rivers and Bayelsa State is River Santa Barbara.

Wike advised Dickson to approach the court to address his grievances and not resort to the self-help of ‘carrying guns’.

The Rivers State governor said there was nothing personal in the fight for Soku Oil Wells except for to protect “what belongs to Rivers State Ijaw and what belongs to Rivers State.”

He accused Dickson of trying to cause disharmony by attempting to collect what belongs to the Ijaw in Rivers State.

Wike accused the Bayelsa State governor of failing his people by refusing to utilise their resources judiciously.

He said that for a “small state like Bayelsa, it was wrong for the outgoing Governor to expend N70billion on an uncompleted airport when Bayelsa State lacks good roads and Basic Infrastructure.”

Wike said he has achieved more for Rivers State in four years than Dickson did for Bayelsa State in about 8 years.

He warned Dickson against spreading false news and propaganda against him and his administration.