Alfred Kemepado, Bayelsa State’s Commissioner for Youths Development, said President Bola Tinubu should be worried that his appointee, Nyesom Wike, makes reckless statements.
The commissioner said Wike’s disrespect to people would discourage people. Wike has disrespected from voting for the president in the 2027 presidential election.
He said people who hold respectable positions should be careful of their public statements, adding that no public office holder should insult or make reckless statements about the ancestry of any group in the country.
Kemepado said this in reaction to Wike’s description of the Ijaws as a minority group.
Wike’s comment drew criticisms from the Ijaw Nation as members of the ethnic group fired back at the FCT Minister for allegedly disrespecting their late leader, Edwin Clark, and associating the ethnic group with criminality.
While appearing on Arise TV’s The Morning Show on Tuesday, April 1, 2025, Kemepado said President Tinubu should not tolerate Wike’s ‘reckless comments’ about the Ijaws.
According to him, “Nobody gets more votes for the president by insulting the people.”
He said, “If anybody serving the president goes about insulting people everywhere, is that how to woo more votes for the president? So on the day of election, would you leave your units and wards and go to these places you’ve been insulting people? It is not about whether the PDP is worried, the presidency that one of his appointees is going about disrespecting and insulting people.”
The commissioner also defended Governor Douye Diri’s recent directive that no political rally should be held in Bayelsa, saying the directive was issued because the governor knew the rally being planned by a group loyal to Wike was a ploy to disrupt the peacefulness of the state.
He added that the directive was issued to avert any political crisis the rally might cause in Bayelsa, and the governor is not afraid of a state of emergency rule imposed on neighbouring Rivers State.“Governor Diri is afraid of nothing. We have a responsibility to provide governance and one of the things we have achieved is peace,” he said.
