Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike, on Wednesday knocked his Ebonyi State counterpart, Dave Umahi, who said that God will give Nigeria a president “who has a good heart like President Muhammadu Buhari for the good of this country” in 2023.

Umahi made the statement on Monday after meeting with Buhari at Aso Villa in Abuja.

But speaking on Wednesday, Wike, in a veiled reference to Umahi, said that his colleague had lied, adding that the President himself knows that God won’t give the country another leader like him in 2023.

The governor spoke at a stakeholders’ meeting in Port Harcourt, the state capital, while addressing business owners in the state on the controversy around Value Added Tax.

Wike, who lamented the injustice in the country under Buhari and the worsening insecurity, insisted that business owners in the oil-rich state must begin VAT remittances to the state government beginning September.

The governor said Rivers generated N15bn in June 2021 but got N4.7bn while “Kano produced N2.8bn in June but Kano also got N2.8bn. Sometimes you don’t want to believe these things exist”.

He added, “That was how a governor was saying that he prays that Nigeria gets another President like Buhari. I said what has gone wrong with him? You mean there shouldn’t be (a) psychiatric check on the governor? Sycophancy.

“And you know that President knows that you are telling lies to him. He (Buhari) knows. It is unfortunate. May God help us.”

Wike and Umahi have been at loggerheads since the latter’s defection from the Peoples Democratic Party to the All Progressives Congress in November 2020.