From Tony John, Port Harcourt
The Chairman of Emohua Local Government Area, Rivers State, Chidi Lloyd, has taken a swipe at a former lawmaker, Senator Lee Meeba, for his recent criticism of state governor Nyesom Wike.
Senator Meeba, a supporter of People’s Democratic Party (PDP) presidential candidate Atiku Abubakar, had accused Wike of running a dictatorship.
He claimed that Wike vowed to stop them from campaigning for Atiku in the state without his expressed permission, lamenting that the governor frustrated his bid to contest the governorship primary of the party.
Meeba, who was recently kicked out of the Governing Council of the Elechi Amadi Polytechnic as its Chairman by the governor, said Wike did not allow him to employ anybody in the institution and refused to fund the polytechnic because of him.
He said the governor was also furious that he and some PDP leaders met with Atiku recently and promised him that Rivers would vote for a PDP candidate in 2023.
Lloyd flayed Meeba describing him as a coward without an electoral value.
He said it was cowardice elevated to the national level for Meeba, a two-time senator to claim that Wike ordered him not to run for the governorship election.
Lloyd said Meeba displayed his cowardice again by remaining as a council chair of a Polytechnic he claimed Wike refused to fund for over seven years without resigning his position.
“I can only describe Lee Meeba as a coward. It is very unfortunate that he has taken his cowardice to the national level. For Lee, a two-time senator to come out on national television to say that Wike ordered him not to run an election and that was why he didn’t win is a sign of his cowardice,” he stated.
“He also said that he sat as a chairman of the Governing Council of the Elechi Amadi Polytechnic but that the governor refused him from employing anybody and didn’t fund the school. But, he remained there without resigning. These are not human beings.”
Lloyd said Meeba lacked decency for reporting the outcome of a meeting he was not in attendance because according to Meeba, who is Ogoni, Wike met with the Ikwerre elite.
“He had no decency to report events that happened in a meeting that he didn’t attend. He said in his interview that it was a meeting of the Ikwerre elite. How did they lose it that governor Wike can cow all of them?,” he asked.
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“Will he (Maeba) had been crying foul if he was given the governorship ticket? He opened his mouth to say that the governor hates Ogoni. This is the same man that has dualised the road from Saakpenwa to Kono where Lee comes from. Maybe, the governor didn’t give Lee’s company, New Tiger Head, the construction of an overhead bridge that will fall and kill Rivers people.
“They have nothing to say about Governor Wike. Let him leave Abuja and come to Rivers to grant interviews. Let him come home. We are here. These are food is ready politicians. They think that going to Atiku and casting aspersions on Governor Wike will make Atiku take them seriously.
“He has also shown that he can’t give Atiku one vote. Between Wike and Lee, who should Atiku go for, the man who called you and say you would not get one vote and it happened that way? Let Lee Maeba point at one Ogoni he had made all through his foray in the Senate. How on earth do you think that a state like Rivers would not matter with over 3.6m votes?”
On Atiku, he said: “It is obvious that Atiku wasn’t destined to be president with his body language. As a Catholic, I will tell you that clearly. I haven’t seen a man, who is given delicious food and he pushes it down.
“Nobody abdicates his pulpit to intruders. Atiku came back to the PDP from the APC, contested the 2019 election, lost and proceeded to Dubai. He was on that long vacation until the election period. He came back.
“This is somebody the former president told us that if he had handed over to him, God wouldn’t have forgiven him. Do they think that we don’t have memory? It is in Obasanjo’s book. Rather than look for ways and means to pull everybody together on a table, the likes of Lee are running to Abuja. Is that where the election will hold?
“I want to remind Lee that his school, the secondary school he attended in his community is leaking. He attended Government Secondary School, Rumeme. No roof.”
Lloyd insisted that the plot by Atiku and those loyal to him to create a crisis in Rivers PDP was an exercise in futility because the party’s leaders were solidly behind Governor Wike.
He said: “There is no crisis in Rivers PDP. Governor Wike is in charge. We are satisfied with Governor Wike. That was why some of us who went to APC came back to join forces with him. Can’t you see what is happening that there is no other political party in Rivers? We are solidly behind Wike.
“Lee opened his mouth and said that Wike said he should not buy form. Forms sold at the national secretariat. Former Vice President Alhaji Atiku Abubakar should not allow these characters to mess up this chance that he has. These people only profit from crises. We know Ledogo Maeba. He has no pedigree to cast aspersion on Wike.”