The spokesperson of the campaign council, Daniel Bwala, has accused Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike of having a personal agenda in his battle with the Peoples Democratic Party.
According to Bwala, Wike was not fighting for equity, fairness, and justice as he claimed.
Bwala made this know on Sunrise Daily, a Channels Television programme.
He argued that Wike does not practice what he preaches and that the PDP will still win next year’s presidential election without the support of the Rivers’ governor.
Bwala said Wike is also guilty of what he is complaining about at the party, adding that the Rivers governor is doing exactly what he was complaining about in his state.
He said:
“If you study Governor Wike’s strategy, he is always shifting the goalpost. At first, the presidential candidate was the problem. At other times, it was not the presidential candidate but the chairman of the party. And yet at other times, it was a set of stakeholders.
“I have not seen a single commissioning in Rivers where Atiku has not been the subject of conversation. You are commissioning a project and you’re discussing a crisis at the party. So, it is becoming apparent that Wike is pursuing personal ambition.
“So, if what they are agitating is what he calls integrity, I think it is clear now that Wike is pursuing his ambition and not what he claims to be equity, fairness, and justice. I can tell you that Wike is doing exactly the opposite of what he claims to be pursuing.
“He is an Ikwerre man; he took over from an Ikwerre man. His chief of staff is an Ikwerre man; the vice chancellor of their university is an Ikwerre man; the rector of their polytechnic is also an Ikwerre man too.
“He is complaining about the fact that Atiku and Iyorchia Ayu, the party’s chairman, are from the North. But his governorship candidate is from the same senatorial district as the chairman of the party in Rivers. And you can take that and apply it to virtually all that he says whether within or outside the government.”
He also reacted to Wike’s logistics promise support to the presidential candidates of the Labour Party, Peter Obi, and his New Nigerian Peoples Party (NNPP) counterpart, Rabiu Kwankwaso.
He again said:
“Apart from the fact that he drove Obi out of the party, it is a sign of insincerity because the people he is promising logistics to are from the same region as the chairmen of the respective parties.”
Bwala said Wike who participated in the process that produced Atiku has no moral right to be fighting against the party because he lost the ticket to the former vice president Atiku.
While admitting he sighted a fresh court case seeking to disqualify Atiku from the race, Bwala said the content of the summons was just the reflections of what Wike has been saying all along.
He said:
“Essentially, the suit is saying the party should have zoned the presidential ticket to the South and disqualified Atiku while declaring him, Wike, as the candidate of the party.”
He said the suit is a mere distraction and that it is dead on arrival.
He said:
“From the time Wike started his hullabaloo he has not been able to expand beyond the nucleus of what he has been saying. That tells to show that if the party has a problem, it would have extended beyond that point. The party has been consistent and it is bigger than any individual.”
After the presidential primary, where he came second, Governor Wike and four other governors, known as the G5, have been at odds with the main opposition party’s leadership.
They are insisting that PDP National Chairman Iyorchia Ayu should quit because he believes the contest was rigged in Atiku Abubakar’s favour.
Other governors calling for Ayu to step down as the party’s national chairman are Seyi Makinde (Oyo), Samuel Ortom (Benue), Okezie Ikpeazu (Abia), and Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi (Enugu). The governors had repeatedly maintained that the party’s chairman and the presidential candidate cannot be from the same region. The group was initially known as the G-5, but it recently metamorphosed into the ‘Integrity Group’.
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