Wike to Wase: Rivers PDP will support APC candidate for house of reps speaker

Nyesom Wike, governor of Rivers, says the Peoples Democratic Party in the state will support any candidate presented by the leadership of the All Progressives Congress (APC) for the position of speaker of the 10th house of representatives.

Wike spoke on Monday when Idris Wase, deputy speaker of the house of representatives, led a delegation of lawmakers to visit him at the government house in Port Harcourt.

Wike said the PDP won 11 of the 13 house of representatives seats in the state and that the lawmakers-elect will support a consensus candidate nominated by the APC for the position of speaker.

“The truth must be told that we are going to support the leadership of your party at the national level,” Wike said.

The governor said the PDP in the state will back the candidate that has the experience and capacity to “stabilise” the house.

“You (Wase) are an experienced person. What we require now is experience as far as the legislature is concerned. Experience will stabilise the house. So, (we) don’t require a greenhorn,” he said.

On his part, Wase said he was in Port Harcourt with lawmakers from different political parties to seek support ahead of the leadership election of the house.

“Your excellency, we just finished the national and presidential election, we are about to go into the national assembly politics and that is why we are here to seek your support, to seek your prayers and blessing, by the grace of God so that we can have a unified country, stabilised system,” he said.

“Your excellency, we are here in your very comfort zone as a leader, as a mentor and as a father who has stood very firm in accordance with the provisions of our constitution to see that power is adequately shared; and as former chairman of federal character (committee) in the house of representatives, I also understand the sentiment and emotions when it comes to the distribution of infrastructure development and power equation in the country.”

Although he is yet to formally declare his intention to contest the position of the speakership, Wase has been traversing the country consulting stakeholders in the APC and PDP.