‘Beer Parlour Talks’ – Wike’s Ally, PDP Chieftain Clash Over Poisoning Claim

A former National Secretary of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Senator Ibrahim Tsauri, has tackled former Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike, over claims that he (Wike) was poisoned at the party’s secretariat in 2018.

Recall that the former governor, while speaking at a family thanksgiving, claimed that his liver and kidneys stopped functioning after he was allegedly poisoned at the PDP secretariat.

He said: “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.”

Speaking to The PUNCH, Tsauri described the poisoning claims made by Wike as beer parlour talks.

According to him, the PDP would not engage the former governor as they still see him as a member of their party.

He said: “If Wike was poisoned, who did the poisoning? We talk or comment on important issues, not beer parlour issues. If he (Wike) mentioned names of individuals or groups, then we can make comment.”

“You should also try to find out when, where, and how he made those claims. In sociolinguistics, you don’t make a 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.”

But reacting swiftly, a former Rivers State Commissioner for Information and Communications, Ogbonna Nwuke, asked Tsauri to stop playing politics with health matters.

“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 Tsauri is the one engaging in beer parlour talks because his 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,” he added.