Rivers State Governor, Siminalayi Fubara, has condemned the ongoing politics of bitterness in the state alleging his Senator tried to stop members of the Senate Ad-hoc Committee on Turnaround Maintenance of Nigerian Refineries from paying him the traditional courtesy visit.
Fubara hails from Rivers South-east senatorial zone being represented by Senator Barry Mpigi.
Mpigi was in the state yesterday with other members of the committee led by Senator Ifeanyi Ubah, to inspect the ongoing turnaround maintenance of the Port Harcourt Refinery but was conspicuously missing when the committee paid a courtesy visit to Fubara in Government House on Friday night.
Mpigi belongs to the camp of the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nyesom Wike.
While addressing the senators, Fubara said: “I am aware that this is not the actual number of members of this committee. You are more than this. I am also aware that the senator representing, unfortunately, my senatorial district, didn’t want you to come here.
“But because you are men of integrity – the real ones, who have integrity; you decided to come and do what is right. God will bless you.
“What you are doing is the right thing. Politics is a business of interest. Your worst enemy today can become your best friend tomorrow. It’s a business of interest. But the interest of the people should come first.
“Unfortunately, some people think it is something that has to do with life or death. And that is one mistake everybody makes when you take this business outside of the normal principles and rules.
“Our government has no business with politics of bitterness because we have the interest of our people at heart. We take their wellbeing as our priority, because that is why they gave us the mandate to govern them. So, their interest, which is the interest of the state, comes first in our scheme of things.”
Fubara warned that anybody disrespecting a man in authority either for his age or status, could succeed temporarily but such insults would boomerang with greater and bigger pain.
He said: “We might be a state, as being presented that we have issues. But we don’t have any issues. Our eyes are on the ball to deliver for our people. Even in the face of this deliberate distraction, we will not fail our people because at the end, it is the impact we make on our people that counts.”
The governor, in a statement by his Chief Press Secretary (CPS), Nelson Chukwudi, reminded the senators of the peaceful nature and hospitality of the state and its people, and urged them to feel free to interact with the government for the mutual benefit of all stakeholders.
