Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike, has revoked the Certificate of Occupancy issued to owners of Le Meridien Hotel in Port-Harcourt, the state capital.

It was gathered that the Certificate of Occupancy of the hotel was revoked by the governor over the failure of the owners of the hotel to pay ground fees over a period of years.

The Rivers State Government, on Sunday, December 25, 2022, published a notice revoking the Certificate of Occupancy for the failure to pay ground rents.

However, a critic of the state government and former Special Adviser to Wike on Media, Opunabo Inko-Tariah, on Tuesday, alleged that the governor withdrew the certificate of occupancy following a meeting in the hotel by associates of the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar.

“There was no crisis, politicians met and nothing untoward. So, on what ground are you going to revoke the C of O? It is rationally inexplicable. Simply because these are people that are loyal to Atiku and you want to frustrate the campaign of Atiku and that was why you went ahead to revoke that C of O.

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“You know I had warned earlier that these laws (Executive Order) are going to be prescriptions for anarchy because there is a limit to which anyone can take such madness. You push a man to the wall it bounces back.

“Now, some people went and destroyed Magnus Abe’s property (SDP Campaign Office) and of course there was a retaliation, they also went and destroyed PDP property. What do you expect?” Inko-Tariah, who served as a Special Adviser to Wike for five months before tendering his resignation, said on Tuesday morning.

Wike had a few weeks ago signed Executive Order 22 which restricted political parties and their candidates from siting political campaign offices in residential areas without government approval.

The state government, last Friday, sealed off Atiku’s campaign office, located in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital.

Speaking on the closure of the campaign office, Governor Wike said the development was due to the violation of the Executive Order he signed in the state.

The governor added that his estranged political associates and members of PDP Presidential Campaign Council in Rivers State, Senator Lee Maeba and Dr. Abiye Sekibo, have been trying to instigate violence in the state by deliberately violating a state law that prohibits the location of political offices in residential areas of the state.

The Star