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By Akinwande Soji-Ojo
The Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, has said the criticism of Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike, over the state pardon granted by President Muhammadu Buhari to a former governors of Plateau and Taraba States, Joshua Dariye and Jolly Nyame, lacked moral justification.
Wike had criticised the state pardon, saying it ridiculed the judiciary which had convicted both men of corruption.
The presidential hopeful, who spoke in Minna on Saturday, where he met with delegates of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), lamented that the Buhari administration is selective in its war against corruption.
He added that the state pardon was strategically done towards the forthcoming 2023 general elections.
Reacting, Shehu in a post on his Facebook page, faulted Wike’s criticism, saying the governor ought to have made it known at the meeting where the state pardon was issued, which he attended, instead of airing his views after the meeting.
“I do not see the moral justification for Governor Wike’s criticism of the decision of the government to pardon Governors Dariye and Nyame at a meeting to which he was duly invited but did not attend.
“The Rivers State Deputy Governor, Dr. Ipalibo Banigo, who joined the Council of State meeting virtually switched off her camera so it was difficult to determine whether she sat behind the dark screen or just walked away after first joining.
“If the governor felt so strongly about the pardons, the right was for him or his representative to sit through the meeting and assert views. This did not do. A press release after the meeting is bolekaja politics,” Shehu wrote.