Senator Ibrahim Tsauri, the former National Secretary of the Peoples Democratic Party, has dismissed the assertions made by the former Governor of Rivers State, Nyseom Wike, that he was poisoned at the PDP secretariat in 2018, considering them to be mere rumors or gossip exchanged in a casual setting like a beer parlor.
Recently, during a family Thanksgiving service held in his honor in Port Harcourt, the capital of Rivers State, Wike claimed that his liver and kidneys ceased to function due to the alleged poisoning incident at the PDP secretariat.
“From that Sunday, I never came down from my room. It was bad, but those who attended the January 1 state banquet of 2019 will know that I never spoke that day. I just sat down there, and I told my deputy governor to speak on my behalf.
“People didn’t know what was going on. After that banquet, by midnight, I was taken out of the country because I thought it was over. When we got to Beirut, the doctors looked at me, and I was looking at them. They were not telling me anything. They said we had to do many tests.
“But, through divine providence, what would have been a disastrous situation was miraculously turned around by God, who immediately began to restore the failed organs.”
Tsauri Said: “If Wike was poisoned, who did the poisoning? We talk or comment on important issues, not beer parlor issues. If he (Wike) mentioned names of individuals or groups, then we can make a comment.”
He also said: “You should also try to find out when, where, and how he made those claims. In sociolinguistics, you don’t make meaning out of the words someone utters but how he says them.
“We still see Mr. Wike as a member of the PDP, so we don’t like to be taking issues with him on his utterances. He has been like that, and you don’t expect him to stop now just because he left the seat of power a few weeks ago. Allow him time to come to terms with out-office betrayals by those he believed were his friends.”
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However, Chief Ogbonna Nwuke, a former Commissioner for Information and Communications in Rivers State, swiftly criticized Tsauri for politicizing such a grave matter.
“When people are appalled by your profile and the fact that they are disappointed when they feel you don’t matter, this is the kind of comment you get. It’s ignorance.
“Why can’t he go to Beirut and find out if the former governor’s claim is false? Or would he have preferred that the man dies? How can you be playing politics with a matter as serious as the health and life of an individual?” Nwuke queried.
He added that “I think they are the ones engaging in beer parlor talks because their utterances are lacking sense and meaning.
“What is happening clearly is that those who think Wike will be quiet after leaving office as governor are disappointed that he is still talking and addressing issues of national interest.”
