Tinubu offered me Senatorial ticket, Wike opens up on PDP crisis

Rivers State governor Nyesom Wike has told of how the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential candidate in the 2023 election, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, offered him a senatorial slot to leave the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and pitch tent with him in APC.

Wike, who spoke Friday in a televised interview with the media, said he did not take Tinubu’s offer because he “believes in equity, fairness, and justice”.

“I didn’t contest so I can become a vice presidential candidate. I am not like others who were not serious and bought senatorial form alongside presidential form and that’s why when Tinubu offered me senate slot, I didn’t go for it. If I want power or want to be in power, I would have gone ahead to take the senatorial ticket. But I said no. That is a man who believes in equity, fairness, and justice,” he recounted of his meeting with Tinubu, ostensibly held in London.

Besides the APC presidential candidates, others, including his party’s presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar and Labour Party’s Peter Obi, have met with Wike at various times, in and outside of Nigeria, to seek his support.

“Aside from Tinubu, who is from the APC, other political parties are talking to me as well including Labour Party because they all know my worth and how I can ensure that they win the 2023 poll. But I have not accepted any of the offers presented by those parties,” said the former PDP presidential aspirant.

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Wike and some members of the PDP leadership have been engrossed in a crisis of confidence since the party’s last National Convention that saw the election of former Vice President Atiku Abubakar as PDP’s presidential candidate in the 2023 election.

The crisis was made worse by the bad blood that followed the nomination of Delta State governor Ifeanyi Okowa as Atiku’s running mate.

Wike had emerged the preferred candidate as Atiku’s running mate, according to report filtered from the PDP committee that screened the possible vice presidential candidates, but Atiku side-stepped him, chose Okowa and went ahead to announce him without prior meeting with Wike, thereby setting the stage for the current war of attrition.

There has been no-love-lost between what is now referred to as ‘Wike’s Group’ of PDP and supporters of the presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar.

The Wike’s Group is made up of those who want the National Chairman of the party, Senator Iyorchia Ayu, to step down for a southerner to emerge, in order to give the party a balance, in its leadership structure, while the other part sees nothing wrong in PDP having both the presidential candidate and the national chairman come from the north.

In any case, Ayu had been quoted as reportedly promising to resign in effect a northerner emerged the presidential candidate of PDP so as to maintain the regional equilibrium in the party’s leadership structure.

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With Abubakar as the presidential candidate and Ayu as the National Chairman, both from the north, the Wike Group is insisting that Ayu must resign to make way for a southerner as it had been the PDP’s tradition to rotate and balance the offices between the north and south. When the party has a northern presidential candidate, the national chairman will come from the south and vice versa.

Wike blamed the lingering crisis in PDP on the failure to zone the party’s presidential ticket to a particular region, ab initio. Fielding questions from select journalists in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, he said that PDP ignorantly planted a seed of discord by leaving the ticket open for all to contest.

“Those who thought they are too powerful, highly connected, and that they own the party said there should be no zoning of the presidential ticket – ‘leave it open and let the best candidate emerge’ – because they think they have the numbers.

“We jettisoned our constitution not knowing that we are laying the foundation, the seed of discord in the future,” he said.

Wike revealed that some ex-military generals and other PDP members met on the night of the party’s presidential primary to prevent his emergence as the party’s presidential candidate, adding that the meetings were part of what led to the delay in the commencement of the convention on the day of PDP primary.

Wike lambasted Ayu, for his role during the party’s convention, saying he aided the emergence of the former vice president, Abubakar, as the party’s flagbearer.

“A whole national chairman told some aspirants that if Wike wins that he was going to resign. As chairman of the convention, he allowed Aminu Tambuwal to speak a second time. Look, integrity matters. And after everything, he (Ayu) went and hugged Tambuwal that he was the hero of the convention,” he regretted.