The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) governorship candidate in Rivers State, Chief Nyesom Wike, has demanded an apology from the All Progressives Congress (APC) and its candidate, Dr. Dakuku Peterside, for the allegation that his blueprint was not original.

Peterside had on Monday, few hours after Wike presented his blueprint for development of the state, alleged that the document was cloned from his own document.

He also said he had contacted his lawyers who would take necessary legal steps against Wike after studying the Copyright Law.

But addressing journalists in Port Harcourt on Thursday, Wike said the allegation was a falsehood against him and his party.

“We consider Dakuku’s circulated falsehood as an assault on the integrity of the PDP’s gubernatorial candidate, his running mate and members of the team that facilitated the PDP blueprint,” Wike, who was represented at the briefing by the co-Chairman of the PDP Blueprint Committee, Mr. Isaac Okemimi, said.

The statement read at the briefing said: “We state categorically that there is no iota of truth in that allegation. The fact is that the PDP’s blueprint was vigorously and painstakingly prepared by the candidate, Wike himself; his deputy, Dr. Ipalibo Banigo; and a team of renowned professors and distinguished professionals.

“Prior to the emergence of our candidate, the PDP had a rigorous primary election process involving over 21 aspirants, each with ideas and concepts of governance drawn from the PDP manifesto. Our candidate began work on his blueprint 10 months ago.”

He stated that the PDP blueprint entitled “our Mission” clearly defined itself in its layout and content, vision and mission for a new Rivers state characterised by a ‘New Vision, New Thinking and Better Opportunities.’

“The PDP blueprint is a social contract between the PDP as a political party and our candidate as our flag bearer, on the one hand, and the residents of Rivers State. Our mission document has a clearly set out table of contents that directs the attention of the readership to any area of specific interest or concern,” he said.

Wike said the party had analysed the APC’s document and could not find any correlation between both documents.

“The PDP’s analysis of what the APC claims to be a Road Map does not reveal any correlation whatsoever between the APC document and the blueprint of the PDP governorship candidate. Clearly, the APC in Rivers State and its gubernatorial candidate do not understand the grammatical meaning of the words – clone, plagiarism, and copy,” he said.

He said in preparing the PDP blueprint, the party took cognisance of the “rot that is now in Rivers State”, especially in the areas of education, health, roads and infrastructure.

“These are in contradistinction to the consultant-prepared, unstructured, internet-generated, soulless document of the APC governorship candidate that consists more of verbose phrases, incoherent statements than structured policies,” he said.

He also noted that while the theme of the APC campaign had been on consolidation and continuity, the PDP was opposed to Amaechi transiting to Dakuku arrangement.
“Therefore we hereby demand a retraction and apology, failing which we shall take appropriate steps to protect our reputation,” Wike said.