Barely
24 hours after Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike, declared that he
will be running for a second term in office, in 2019, another
aspirant, Soalabo West, has also announced his willingness to contest
for governorship on the platform of the Peoples' Democratic Party,
PDP.
West,
an energy and maritime lawyer of the Kalabari ethnic extraction, says
his willingness to vie for the 2019 governorship election on the
platform of the People's Democratic Party, PDP, "is anchored on
a new paradigm to make Rivers State great again."
He
stated that the circumstances that threw up Wike in 2015 have been
actualised with his emergence as governor in 2015 under the aegis of
the PDP and it is now the turn of the riverine communities to produce
the Governor in 2019.
"The
prevailing argument then, was that Rivers was a PDP state and the
people of the state needed to wrest the leadership of the state from
the All Progressives Congress, APC, the party which the then
incumbent governor Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi defected to in 2013."
West
recalled: "Governorship aspirants from the riverine ethic
nationalities were asked to work with Wike, not because the
Upland/Riverine dichotomy was not there, but essentially because of
imperatives of the time."
"One,
that Rivers State should go to the PDP, and second, that the state
should be properly mobilised to deliver majority votes to former
President Goodluck Jonathan in the 2019 presidential election."
West
emphasized that his governorship ambition is propelled by his desire
to bring to the fore: vision; youthful vigour; and a pragmatic and
dynamic approach to the development of the state devoid of political
bickering and sectarian exclusiveness that is currently being
institutionalized."
He
added: "My appeal to our youths and all stakeholders is to
eschew violence and thuggery because according to former President
Jonathan, nobody's blood should be shed for anybody's political
ambition."
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