Publicity Secretary of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Rivers State, Sydney Tambari Gbara, in this interview with ANN GODWIN, spoke on the crisis bedeviling the party in the state, the face-off between Governor Siminalayi Fubara and Minister of FCT, Nyesome Wike, transparency issues in governance, and why Rivers is now better off despite unease.There are a lot of differences since Governor Fubara breathes that air of freedom. He has been doing well in the appointments and implementation of his programmes. For the first time, the civil servants are happy. Under this administration, all the gratuities are being paid, promotions that have not taken place for a very long time took place, all the backlog of arrears have been paid. There are life transforming programmes and projects that have direct impact on the people that are being implemented by the government. Well, we usually have our meetings together but there are disagreements based on principles. Some felt they must follow the FCT minister despite whatever he is doing, but they have forgotten that the minister himself thought us to be sensible in loyalty. He taught us to ask questions. When the PDP National Working Committee (NWC) and Atiku Abubakar’s camp were not in agreement with him and the G5 governors, he took his decision and moved on. He decided to support the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential candidate, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, who won the election and today Wike is the FCT minister. So, we have equally learnt from him to ask questions in our loyalty. At the expiration of our tenure, the NWC in conjunction with the governors’ forum met and agreed that all the executives of the party from state, ward and local government should be retained for another three months as caretaker committee till the congresses to elect those that will take over. A release was made in that regard by the national publicity secretary of the party and we continued our work only for us to be greeted one day by a purported list of members of the caretaker committee. The quest for power has beclouded the sense of some of our leaders. The FCT minister is a man who was celebrated in the state, I had lots of respect for him because at that time, he stood for the people but with what is going on now, I am indifferent because I don’t see him standing up for our people. He is more concerned about promoting his selfish interest. Everybody has an interest but the interest of the state should be paramount in whatever leaders do. No leader should be a catalyst to a crisis. The primary function of a leader is to bring everybody together but losing this aspect of leadership has made some of us withdraw our respect for him. Former state chairman of the party, Desmond Akawor, made frantic efforts to stop the crisis and some resolutions were reached but were not kept by Wike. The governor is ready for peace. It is sad that most leaders in the party have lost their integrity but I can tell you the only leader who has stood firm is Dr Peter Odili, but Wike berated him and his wife. Fubara is a very peaceful man, I want to urge his followers not to be provoked by the threats and attacks by pro-Wike supporters. They should remain calm, let us continue to support our governor in the interest of Rivers State, they want to disrupt the peace of the state so that people will not enjoy dividends of democracy from the governor. But we want our people to enjoy the dividends of democracy.
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