Pro Wike Rally: N150m Planning Fund Tears Organisers Apart

There has been a crack in the ranks of those planning to host a rally under the guise of Nyesom Ezenwo Wike, NEW Associates in Bayelsa State as a result of what one of the insiders called the greedy disposition of the principal actor in the event.

It was learnt that some of the people working with George Turnah on the rally have become angry that they were not carried along, especially in the disbursement of funds released for the rally.

This is coming even as it has been revealed that the FCT minister, Nyesom Wike, in whose name the entire rally is being organized, was not even in the know of what Turnah was doing until the state governor, Senator Douye Diri raised the alarm about plots to cause chaos in his state through the rally.

One of those who was involved in the rally planning, Chief Rufus Abadi, who is a former chairman of the PDP in the state told TNN in a telephone interview on Friday that he decided to quit and allow Turnah to run his show because he did not see any transparency in the way the rally was being planned and executed.

He said he could not take what he called the insulting posturing of Turnah, whom he said had promised to give him N10m from the N150 million he got for the rally, and not allow all the stakeholders to sit and appropriate the funds for better results.

This is how the telephone interview went:  

You were involved in the NEW associates rally for Wike, led by George Turnah. But you said the other day that you have pulled out. What exactly is going on?

Well, the actual thing is that the actual money that was requested was about a billion plus and George Turnah later called me and said it is N150 million that has been given to him. I said okay, let’s call a meeting of all the stakeholders, let’s sit down and plan on how we are going to go about this thing and do the rally, where we will make sure there is going to be peace; we will not struggle, we will not offend the governor; let us sit down and appropriate the little money. He went into hiding and started appropriating the money all by himself.

After that, he sent me a list of things he has done; I told him you have become a sole administrator o, this is not how we should do it. He told me he would send me a ticket, I should just come to Yenagoa for the rally. I said oh, you will send me ticket to come to Yenagoa for the rally, I don’t have supporters? I should just come like that? He said he is going to give N10,000 each to 500 boys. He said he is going to send me N10m, I should give N10,000 each to 500 boys and use the remaining N5m for my logistics and all that.

I told him you have misfired; so I am now your boy, you will just give orders and I am to obey? I don’t work with such greedy people. Not only that, he is bias, he is angry with the governor. I am not fighting the governor, I don’t have any problem with the governor and he wants to do everything to provoke the governor.

I told him that if we must have a successful rally, we must do it in such a way as to make the governor to support us and be with us. I told him that should be our main aim, not that because you have a personal problem with the governor, you want to provoke him. No, no, no, I am not comfortable. I cannot follow a small boy and mess myself up.

So, you are truly not going to be involved again

No, no, no. I am not going to be involved.

But what really happened? From the beginning, the first flyer I saw showed that the rally was being organized to receive Wike and to also inaugurate the Bayelsa wing of the NEW Associates, before the entire thing changed to reflect a thank you rally for Tinubu for appointing Ijaw sons into positions of authority.

That flyer was just a one-man squad. It was Turnah who just did that on his own because he is angry with the governor; so he just wanted to make the governor angry. But when we came in, we advised him- you know he is a small boy. We said this is not how to do it. If you listened to the way I spoke on AIT, you would see that I did not go against anybody. He just did that one(the first flyer). We are political juggernauts, we are political wizards, we cannot allow a small boy to dictate wrong things to us.

So, we told him no, this is not the way you are supposed to go about things. One, Wike is not even aware that you have done this and that. It was when the governor now came out and made the statements that he made about the rally and Wike, that was when Wike now heard that something like that was happening. Wike was not aware. It was when they started attacking Wike; that was why he grew annoyed.

Who released the N150m to Turnah?

Wike get so many boys nah. He has a lot of big boys who have money. Wike did not release that money. He has a lot of boys around him. They are the ones that released the money. Okay, I told him, you have got the money, come let us sit down and talk. He went into hiding and started appropriating the money. The way he wants to go about it, he wants to create trouble. He cannot withstand it. I know Bayelsa. You are not on ground, you don’t have your army. If you had your army, fine. But you don’t have your army. So how will you contend with the forces that are against you? So, you just want to go and rent a crowd, they will kill all of them.

You think the rally will still hold?

Well, we don’t know. Turnah is saying it is going to hold; so, we are watching.

I hear he has moved the rally to Kolo…

That is his village nah. He knows he cannot do it in Yenagoa. How can he do it when he does not have his own army? Maybe that is why he is taking it to his village. But I pulled out because he doesn’t want peace. If he has personal problems with Douye(Diri), that is his problem.

The interview was however inconclusive as the network got disconnected and efforts to get him back to talk on other issues relating to the rally was unsuccessful.

TNN also sent Whatsapp messages to Turnah for his response to Abadi’s claims. But even after reading the messages, he did not respond.

The rally, according to TNN sources, has been moved from Yenagoa to Kolo, Turnah’s village and social media posts show that some people have already been enlisted as mobilisers, to draw crowd to the event.

But TNN could not ascertain if the mobilisers or the expected attendees have been paid to either bring people to the venue of to attend.

But it was gathered that the Inspector-General of Police, the state commissioner of police and other security agencies have already been served with the court order stopping Turnah from going ahead with the rally in the state, even though Turnah has claimed that there is no order specifically stopping him from holding a thank you rally for the president, Bola Ahmed Tinubu.