PDP G-5: Behind-the-scene On Wike’s Failure In Announcing Presidential Candidate

By Temidayo Akinsuyi

With the month of January coming to an end, Rivers State governor, Nyesom Wike failed to announce the presidential candidate he and his allies will be backing in the 2023 presidential election as he had earlier promised.

It will be recalled that Wike had in December last year said he will make his preferred presidential candidate known in January 2023. He also said that he will campaign for his adopted candidate nationwide.

“From January next year, I will campaign to my people whom they will vote for,” Wike said when he commissioned the tenth flyover by his administration in the Obio-Akpor Local Government Area of Rivers.

“So, all of you who have been in suspense, who have been saying all kinds of things, abusing me, wait. January is here.

“Not only will I tell them (my people) whom to vote, I will move from state to state (for campaigns) and why they should vote for the person, nothing will happen,” he said.

Speaking with our correspondent yesterday, a member of the PDP National Working Committee (NWC) who asked not to be named said Governor Wike knows that doing so may lead to his suspension by the PDP national leadership as it amounts to anti-party activities.

Wike and his allies are being careful that if they launch out by announcing a presidential candidate, the party’s hammer may fall on them”.
“The party is supreme and if they announce any other presidential candidate, they will be suspended. Forget all what Wike is saying, he is not bigger than the party. He is just one individual and can be sanctioned.

Just like the party did recently with respect to Ekiti PDP, aside suspending the governors, they can also suspend the candidates they are backing for Senate, House of Representatives”.

“When Wike made the statement, he never took it into cognizance that he can be suspended based on the constitutional provisions of the party. However, a member of the NWC granted an interview recently where he quoted from the PDP constitution that if they announce a presidential candidate aside the party’s flagbearer, they may be sanctioned”.

“The truth there is nothing Wike can do if he is sanctioned. The best he can do is to go and challenge it in court and nobody knows where the litigation will end. By the end of the matter, the election would have been over and he and his candidates may lose out” he said.

(Independent, excluding amended headline)