Dr. Dakuku Peterside, a former director-general of NIMASA, the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency, has pressed Rivers Governor Nyesom Wike to declare his first choice for the February election.
The leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC) also denounced unjustified assaults on the party’s Opobo/Nkoro Local Government Area campaign headquarters.
In a statement sent by his media team following his remarks at the APC rally in Opobo-Nkoro, Peterside asserted that “Wike is not a man of courage, as he wants Nigerians to believe.”
He said: “Wike avoids difficult conversations, lacks vision and pursues personal interest above people’s interest.
“I dare Wike to tell the people the presidential candidate he is supporting if he is a man. He had promised his fans that he will unveil his candidate latest January but he lacks courage to take a position”.
Dakuku, an illustrious son of Opobo, expressed deep reservations over the attack on APC rally and accused a local government chairman of introducing violence into an area that had been peaceful since 1999.
He said: “It is a shame that they will go to the extent of attacking their fellow Opobo people because of politics, something that has never happened in our political history.
“Opobo people have been known for political tolerance, diplomacy, exposure and decency but the chairman, acting on the instruction of his gods, has now joined the home of our forebears to the list of flashpoints in Rivers State; this is reckless, irresponsible and disgraceful to say the least.”
The 2015 governorship candidate of the APC in Rivers advised the people of Opobo and Nkoro to choose only a competent “surgeon to perform surgery, competent pilot to fly plane and competent architect to draw houses,” rather than choosing a clan’s man, “who lacks the requisite knowledge to perform any tactical duty”.
Dakuku said: “We cannot choose our clan’s man who is not a doctor to perform surgery or who is not a pilot to fly plane; we cannot go for clan over competence and character.
“The APC has in Tonye Cole, a competent, graceful, intelligent, capable and read-for-the-job governorship candidate. Our people will vote for the APC from bottom to the top and not amount of intimidation will change that.”