According to Okoi Obono-Obla, a former presidential prosecution aide, Vice President Kashim Shettima’s purported warning to Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Minister Nyesome Wike about the All Progressives Congress’s leadership in Rivers State is needless.
Speaking in Enugu on Wednesday, Shettima reportedly said that governors are the party’s leaders in their individual states.
Given that the Minister made it apparent that Governor Siminalayi Fubara is not the head of the APC in Rivers State, several people took Shettima’s remarks as a direct threat to Wike.
In an interview with Daily Post, Obono-Obla stated that there is no disagreement regarding leadership because, according to the party’s rules, the governor of a state under party control is automatically the party’s leader.
However, he stated, “The Vice President is not totally incorrect to make such an assertion if the Governors assume such a toga by convention within the Party.” However, since Minister Nyesom Wike is not an APC member in Rivers State, it might not be suitable to send it to him.
However, Obono-Obla pointed out that although there is no clause in the APC Constitution designating APC-elected governors as the Party’s leaders in their individual states, they do so implicitly and customarily.
He said that this method is contentious since some contend that governors take advantage of the lack of a clearly defined function and its obligations to grant themselves total power, which they frequently utilize to encourage godfatherism and cronyism.
In order to prevent the misuse of convention and to guarantee that leadership duties are appropriately defined, the party stalwart demanded clarity in the APC Constitution.
