Tunde Sholanke
Rivers State governor, Nyesom Wike has faulted recent statement Labour Party’s presidential candidate, Mr Peter Obi,alleging he denied him of victory in the State in the February 25th , 2023 presidential election.
There was never a time that the G-5 governors endorsed Obi or another candidate as their preferred candidate for the 25 February presidential election,Wike said on Wednesday during a media chat on Wednesday in his home town, Rumueprikom, Port Harcourt.
He described Obi’s allegation that he manipulated the electoral process to his disadvantage as unfortunate.
He added:“I don’t work for INEC, I don’t have INEC documents with me. I am not an ad hoc staff of INEC and so I am not in a place to rig election for anybody. It is when you have the materials of INEC that you talk about rigging. But I take exception to Peter Obi’s comments that I came out against him. People are not being sincere, people are not appreciative.”
He maintained that his primary concern in the 2023 presidential election was concerned was for a southern Nigerian to succeed President Muhammadu Buhari, whose tenure ends on the 29th May, 2023.
“I never told Rivers people to vote for the candidate (of the APC). I told Rivers people (to vote) for the unity of Nigeria. As far as Rivers State is concerned, their position is that ‘look, we want a power shift.’ And there are two candidates from the South – Asiwaju Bola Tinubu and Peter Obi.
“If Rivers people have chosen to vote for Asiwaju, and the same Rivers people also voted for Peter Obi, that tells you that their decision was to vote for a Southern President. So amongst them one must always get the highest vote. If you look at the votes, APC won, followed by the Labour Party. So that tells you what the decision they took. That is the decision of Rivers people.”
He said he was among those who recommended Obi to be Peoples Democratic Party presidential candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar’s running mate in 2019.
“In 2019, ask Peter Obi, I was one of the those that chose Obi to be the Vice Presidential candidate of Alhaji Atiku Abubakar. When we met at Abubakar’s house, he said these are the names, I will choose Obi. Obi was invited while we were at Saraki’s house in the night.
“I was fought by people like Senator Ike Ekweremadu, my own friend the governor of Ebonyi State, David Umahi, and Pius Anyim. Every blame was on me, why will I be the one that will say Peter Obi. Why should I chose for the South East. Did he come out to say governor Wike was the one who supported me to be the vice presidential candidate? He didn’t say so.”
He declared that the G-5 governors and the Integrity Group never during any of their meetings unanimously endorsed Obi or any presidential candidate of southern Nigeria extraction.
He said: “There was never a time the integrity Group met and say it must be this person. We only agreed on southern President. We formulated strategies and the southern President emerged. Our interest is that a southern President should emerge.
“When we went to our meeting, we decided on southern President. We didn’t say it must be this. We said whatever you are doing it must be southern President. The aim of G5 was equity, fairness and justice”.
The governor said the G-5 governor and members of the Integrity Group cannot be accused of betraying the PDP. He stressed that those who blatantly refused to implement the provisions of the party’s constitution on rotation of elective and appointive offices are to blame the party’s electoral misfortune.
