{"id":63651,"date":"2025-04-02T05:05:11","date_gmt":"2025-04-02T05:05:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/?p=63651"},"modified":"2025-04-02T05:05:11","modified_gmt":"2025-04-02T05:05:11","slug":"wikes-insults-could-cost-you-votes-kemepado-warns-tinubu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/2025\/04\/02\/wikes-insults-could-cost-you-votes-kemepado-warns-tinubu\/","title":{"rendered":"Wike\u2019s Insults Could Cost You Votes, Kemepado Warns Tinubu"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Our Correspondent<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Bayelsa State\u2019s Commissioner for Youth Development, Alfred Kemepado, has cautioned President Bola Tinubu against tolerating the inflammatory remarks of his appointee, Nyesom Wike.<\/p>\n<p>He warned that Wike\u2019s public insults, particularly against the Ijaw people, could alienate voters ahead of the 2027 presidential election.<\/p>\n<p>Kemepado\u2019s reaction follows Wike\u2019s recent comments dismissing the Ijaw as a minority group, a statement that sparked outrage.<\/p>\n<p>Ijaw leaders condemned the remarks as disrespectful, especially towards their late elder statesman, Edwin Clark.<\/p>\n<p>The backlash intensified as many accused Wike of associating the Ijaw ethnic group with criminality.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking on Arise TV\u2019s \u2018The Morning Show\u2019 on April 1, 2025, Kemepado stressed that public officeholders must exercise caution in their statements.<\/p>\n<p>He questioned the political wisdom of Wike\u2019s approach, stating, \u201cNobody gets more votes for the president by insulting the people.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He further challenged Tinubu\u2019s administration to rein in Wike, emphasizing that alienating key ethnic groups is not a strategy for electoral success.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf anybody serving the president goes around insulting people, is that how to win more votes for him?<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;On election day, would you leave your units and wards and go to the places where you\u2019ve insulted people?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n<p>Kemepado also defended Bayelsa Governor Douye Diri\u2019s recent decision to ban political rallies in the state.<\/p>\n<p>He explained that the move was necessary to maintain peace, as a planned rally by Wike\u2019s loyalists threatened to destabilize the state.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cGovernor Diri is afraid of nothing. We have a responsibility to provide governance, and one of our key achievements is maintaining peace,\u201d he asserted.<\/p>\n<p>As political tensions rise, all eyes are on President Tinubu to see if he will act on the growing concerns over Wike\u2019s divisive rhetoric.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Our Correspondent Bayelsa State\u2019s Commissioner for Youth Development, Alfred Kemepado, has cautioned President Bola Tinubu against tolerating the inflammatory remarks of his appointee, Nyesom Wike. He warned that Wike\u2019s public insults, particularly against the Ijaw people, could alienate voters ahead of the 2027 presidential election. Kemepado\u2019s reaction follows Wike\u2019s recent comments dismissing the Ijaw [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":63652,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[172],"tags":[59],"class_list":["post-63651","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-featured"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63651","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63651"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63651\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":63653,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63651\/revisions\/63653"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/63652"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63651"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63651"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63651"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}