2nd January, 2023
By Okafor Ofiebor/Port Harcourt
Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike on Monday said former President, Olusegun Obasanjo did not endorse the PDP’s presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar because he is a bad product.
Obasanjo had endorsed the Labour Party’s presidential candidate, Peter Obi ahead of his former vice president, Atiku on Sunday.
Reacting to the development, Wike stated that a bad product is always difficult to sell, otherwise, Obasanjo would have recommended Alhaji Atiku Abubakar to Nigerians having worked together with him.
But, instead of doing so, Wike noted, that the former president chose to endorsed another presidential candidate, Peter Obi.
Wike insisted that if former president Obasanjo had refused to recommend Atiku, then something must be fundamentally wrong.
He opined that Atiku should be more concerned about that loss of confidence from his former boss, and his coming election.
Wike, who spoke at Itu Bridge Head, venue of the flag-off of the Akpabu- Odido Road in Emohua Local Government Area on Monday, added that for Obasanjo not to have endorsed Atiku simply meant passing a vote of no confidence on him.
The governor also took a swipe against those accusing him and Governor Samuel Ortom of Benue State of frustrating the micro-zoning of the Presidential ticket of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to South-East.
Wike said he had always believed and supported concerted effort towards ensuring that the presidency was zoned to the south.
“I was one of those who led the campaign that the party’s chairmanship should go to the North because I believed the presidency should go to the South.
“I attended meetings of Southern Governors of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and other parties from Delta to Lagos to Enugu states, where we agreed that presidency should come to the south.”
Wike insisted that while southern cross-party consultations were going on, there were people in the PDP who were bent on frustrating the eventual zoning of the party’s presidential ticket to the South.
Such people, he maintained, cannot now turn around to cast the blame on him and Governor Ortom to hide their scheme thinking they could deceive Nigerians.
“I woke up this morning and read where they said, how Wike and Ortom frustrated PDP’s micro-zoning of presidential ticket to South East. That was what the PDP presidential candidate”, Atiku said.
“I keep on saying, they’ll be contradicting themselves, telling lies up and down, thinking that Nigerians don’t know. How can they say that I influenced Ortom, told him to allow and throw the ticket open?”