Governor of Rivers State, Nyesom Wike, said on Thursday that anybody jostling to be president of Nigeria would need to secure votes in Rivers to combine with either Kano or Lagos to emerge victorious.

Such pivotal position, he said, established the importance of Rivers State in the political scheme of the country.

Wike spoke at the grand finale of the Peoples Democratic Party Local Government Election Campaign at Ulakwo in the Etche Local Government Area.

“I keep telling the Peoples Democratic Party that no state has given more votes to the party than Rivers; and it is only in Rivers, in the whole of South-South, that the All Progressives Congress didn’t get 25 per cent votes in 2019 general elections.

“In Nigeria, nobody wins presidency if you didn’t win either Rivers and Lagos or Kano and Lagos together. Rivers is not a state anybody can joke with. Some states went to negotiate with them. Rivers didn’t do it,” the governor said.

Wike in a statement by his Special Assistant on Media, Kelvin Ebiri took a swipe at Senator Andrew Uchendu for his uncanny comments in the media, and wondered what courage he spoke against PDP administration that is ending the suffering he inflicted on his people.

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“I was watching Arise Television the other day, and I heard Senator Andrew Uchendu and the Chief Medical Director of University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital. The CMD said I asked him to indict the former governor.  I don’t know that he has such judicial power.

“He (CMD) set up a target. The man was lobbying to be a commissioner where our former party chairman comes from without even doing due consultation. Because I didn’t give him Commissioner, he ran and started to abuse me,” Wike stated.