Rivers Governor Nyesom Wike said the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in the state would support any candidate presented by the Progressive Congress (APC) leadership for Speaker of the House. lock 10.
Wike revealed this on Monday when Idris Wase, the Vice Speaker of the House of Representatives, led a delegation of lawmakers to visit him at government headquarters in Port Harcourt.
The governor said the PDP had won 11 of the 13 seats in the state House of Representatives and that elected lawmakers would support a consensus candidate nominated by the APC for the presidency.
“It must be true that we will support your party’s leadership at the national level,” Wike said.
He argued that the state PDP would favor a candidate with the experience and ability to “stable” the house.
“You (Wase) are an experienced person. What we require now is experience as far as the legislature is concerned. Experience will stabilise the house. So, (we) don’t require a greenhorn,” he said.
According to Wase, he was in Port Harcourt with lawmakers from different political parties to seek support ahead the leadership election of the house.
“Your excellency, we just finished the national and presidential election, we are about to go into the national assembly politics and that is why we are here to seek your support, to seek your prayers and blessing, by the grace of God so that we can have a unified country, stabilised system.
“Your excellency, we are here in your very comfort zone as a leader, as a mentor and as a father who has stood very firm in accordance with the provisions of our constitution to see that power is adequately shared; and as former chairman of federal character (committee) in the house of representatives, I also understand the sentiment and emotions when it comes to the distribution of infrastructure development and power equation in the country,” he said.
We understand that Wase is yet to formally declare his intention to contest the position of the speakership, but has been traversing the country consulting stakeholders in the APC and PDP.
