Ernest Chinwo in Port Harcourt
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Rivers State has said Governor Nyesom Wike has no hands in the disqualification of Chief Dumo Lulu-Briggs as the Accord party governorship candidate in the State.
A Federal High Court sitting in Port Harcourt on Thursday sacked Lulu-Briggs as the governorship candidate of Accord party in Rivers State and directed the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to delist his name and enlist one Precious Bariddo as candidate of the party.
In reaction to the court decision, Lulu-Briggs blamed Wike for his travails and also accused the Baridoo of being a stooge of the governor.
But in a statement issued by the Director of Information and Communications of the state PDP Campaign Council, Emma Okah yesterday, the PDP said the governor should not be blamed for the travails of the governorship aspirant.
The statement said Lulu-Briggs “is a lawyer and a seasoned politician who ought to know that the steps he took to annex the governorship slot of the Accord Party when there was an existing candidate were wrong and against the letters and spirit of the Electoral Act and extant laws. He therefore has himself to blame and not Wike.
Okah commended Lulu-Briggs for dumping the APC at a time when impunity reigned supreme in Rivers State Chapter, noting that it. It is wrong to condemn impunity in one party and go to another one to perpetrate it.”
He said, “It is therefore wrong for Lulu-Briggs to assume that Wike sponsored the oppressed candidate in court simply because the victim of injustice is not a man of stout means.”
The statement urged Lulu-Briggs “to leave Wike out of his political travails and allow God’s time and preferences to prevail.”
