Ezenwo Nyesom Wike

Locally the polls pitted two of the State's strongmen against each other – Rotimi Amaechi and Ezenwo Nyesom Wike...

His fiercest opponent for that project is Nyesom Wike who won the Rivers governorship last year for the PDP and is the party's most powerful figure in the Delta...

Of those untroubled by the courts state governors such as Peter Ayodele 'Ayo' Fayose in Ekiti or Ezenwo Nyesom Wike in Rivers are combative local populists but with little national appeal...

Abe who faces a tough rerun election for his seat on 19 March accused State Governor Ezenwo Nyesom Wike of paying local militants to kill him...

Yet with the PDP Governor Ezenwo Nyesom Wike's mandate in Rivers State upheld in the High Court with Timipre Sylva (who went over from the PDP to the governing All Progressives Congress) a sore loser to the PDP's Henry Seriake Dickson in Bayelsa with a protracted war with Boko Haram with inter-communal violence between Sunni Muslims and the Shiite minority in the north and with renewed tension in the Middle Belt the Presidency has signalled that it intends to leave the rump PDP faction in place for now...

The victory of Ezenwo Nyesom Wike candidate for Jonathan's People's Democratic Party in March's gubernatorial election in Rivers State has been contested in the courts and there will be a rerun...

Yet Amaechi's appointment – depending on the powers of the ministry he is given – may prompt fresh tensions in oil-producing Rivers State where his arch-rival Ezenwo Nyesom Wike engineered a victory in the recent elections which is now being tested in the courts...

It suspended Amaechi from the PDP and then with the help of Chief Ezenwo Nyesom Wike Education Minister and a close friend of the First Lady Patience Faka Jonathan fomented a political crisis in the state which ended with the closure of the State Assembly and severe restrictions on state budget allocations...