Elder statesman Edwin Clark said he has advised President Bola Tinubu to give Governor Siminalayi Fubara of Rivers State a free hand to run his state’s affairs.

The Ijaw national leader said this while weighing in on the crisis between Fubara and Tinubu’s appointee, Nyesom Wike, which has engulfed the oil-rich state in the past few months.

The crisis has polarised the Rivers State House of Assembly, while many members of Wike’s camp previously appointed by Fubara have quit.

“I have advised Mr President (Tinubu) again that he should leave Fubara alone to run his government, Wike should concentrate on his job in Abuja.

“Once that is done, there will be peace and stability in the state. But if they do anything contrary and there is no peace, it will affect the economy of the country,” Clark told The Punch.

The 97-year-old said elder statesmen like himself have been unable to mediate between Wike and Fubara because of the former’s insistence on controlling the political structure of the state.

“How do you bring them together? One man says I have divorced. But you are my house help. There is no way. You are my son. There is no way any outsider can accept him.

“This is because Wike does not see anything wrong with him. He believes that he is still controlling the structures in Rivers State whereas those structures have been there from governor to governor.

“They don’t belong to one person. Wike was not yet born when Rivers was created,” he said.

Clark castigated the Caretaker Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Rivers State, Tony Okocha for calling on the president to declare a state of emergency in the state over the crisis.

“Concerning the call for a declaration of a state emergency, I can tell you that (Tony)nOkocha doesn’t know what he is doing. Who is he to call for that? He was only fortunate to be put there because the existing Rivers APC executives were dissolved in the first place. He knows me very well.

“Was he not the chief of staff to (Rotimi) Amaechi when he was governor? They were in the APC together. Wike later took seven of them to see (Dr Abdullahi) Ganduje in Abuja. They formed a (caretaker) committee, and today, he is the chairman of Rivers State APC. So, it was obvious from the start that Okocha didn’t want to be with Amaechi again.

“These are the people scattering Rivers State,” he said.