How Wike Thwarted Attempts To Micro-zone South East As President In 2023: Atiku’s Spokesman

Daniel Bwala, the spokesman for the Atiku Campaign Organization, has alleged how Governor Nyesom Wike impeded the Peoples Democratic Party’s (PDP) attempts to micro-zone its presidential ticket to the southeast.

Bwala made the remark on Friday, hours after the governor of Rivers State briefed the media and discussed the crisis that has beset the PDP ever since its presidential primary vote in May.

“The whole gamut of power zoning here or there started with Governor Wike. He virtually had everything he wanted. He brought this chairman (Ayu). When a discussion was being done in the party that power should be zoned, I recall very well, Atiku was inclined that it should be zoned to either southeast or northeast – these are the two geo-political zones that have not benefited,” Bwala said on Channels Television’s Politics Today.

“Then, he (Wike) said if it was ever zoned to the southeast, he was not going to run. The movement then was that it should be micro-zoned to the southeast – among stakeholders from the region. He (Wike) frustrated it because he was interested,” he said.

He asserted that the action also caused Peter Obi, the presidential candidate for the Labour Party (LP), to leave the main opposition group.

“He (Wike) influenced the emergence of leaders that sat in committees – whether committees for party positions or elective office. At his behest, a recommendation was made that it should be thrown open evidently because he is not from the southeast.

“That led to the departure of Peter Obi. If the zoning thing was followed, Peter Obi or probably the former SGF (Ayim Pius) would have emerged as the presidential candidate of the party,” the spokesman added.

Bwala, however, believes that despite the wrangling in the PDP, his principal’s quest to “unify” Nigeria won’t change if elected as president.

He continued, “Atiku Abubakar is the last politician I can look at and say he is discriminatory”, according to Channels TV.