The plot to expel the FCT minister, Mr Nyesom Wike from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has thickened as Dr. Don Pedro Obaseki, director of research, strategy and documentation to the party’s 2023 presidential candidate, Mr Atiku Abubakar, said the Wike-must-go project has to be executed to the letter so that the party could breathe.
Recall that Wike who headed the G-5 PDP governors during the last election did not support Atiku due to their irreconcilable differences.
Wike, who was then governor of Rivers State, won the state for the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the presidential poll and was rewarded with a ministerial portfolio.
Recently, he stirred the hornet’s nest when he alleged that he informed the PDP acting national chairman, Mr Umar Damagum before he (Wike) accepted to serve in the President Bola Tinubu-led APC government.
Since then there have been calls for his expulsion from the party to ensure its party’s survival.
Speaking with journalists in Abuja on Monday, Obaseki listed Wike’s sins to include, but not limited to his recent call for Atiku’s suspension/expulsion, bad-mouthing and backstabbing of the party.
He said the FCT minister is the problem of the party and like Jonah, should be cast overboard to ensure a smooth sail.
“Wike was/is the problem of the PDP and to expel Wike now is a task that must be done by the PDP.
“The person who deserves to be expelled from the party is the man who is calling for the expulsion of others from the party.
“Wike is the one who created a cult within the party and called it the G-5. Against the will, constitution and structures of the party, he campaigned against the party.
“If anybody had done anything anti-party, it is Nyesom Wike. He has fought every known person within the party,” he said.
He alleged that Wike was the reason prominent PDP members including the former governors of Zamfara and Cross River states, Messrs Bello Matawalle and Ben Ayade, and others left the party.
“If you remember, Bello Matawalle, former Governor of Zamfara State cited him as the reason for leaving the party. Dave Umahi cited him as the reason for leaving the party.
“Professor Ben Ayade cited him as the reason for leaving the party. Why is it that in the wake of Nyesom Wike, he has become the proverbial tortoise in every bad story?
“Wike has crossed the red line and now, he should be ready. He has all the money to fight us back because we are coming at him like a thousand bricks.
“He has unleashed the dogs of war and we will not sit back and watch him ride roughshod over the party and majority of Nigerians like he did for 8 years over the humility of the Rivers people. That can no longer suffice,” Obaseki added.
He also disproved that the PDP zoned its presidential ticket to the south stressing that such an arrangement was for the APC.
Obaseki therefore said Wike lied through the teeth when he claimed that he was fighting the party for flouting its own zoning principle.
He alleged that Wike had a hidden agenda since 2021 reiterating that the PDP never zoned its presidential ticket to the south for the 2023 elections.
“The party never said power should go to the South because it was the turn the South in the PDP but it was the turn of the South in the APC.
“Since 1999, we have had six elections. The PDP had given four times out of that six to the south, two times to Olusegun Obasanjo and two times to Goodluck Jonathan.
“But the party has given two out of six to the north – once to Yar’Adua and once to Atiku. I made a presentation to the governors in December 2021 in Asaba and Nyesom Wike did not agree because he wanted a situation where the primaries would be thrown open.
“He wasn’t campaigning but I was campaigning for the south-east and the north-east because they were the only zones that are yet to rule our country since January 15, 1966, outside the South-East that had six months hiatus with General Aguiyi Ironsi.
“Wike, knowing that he’s just less than 106 kilometres away from Otuoke in the home state of Jonathan had no moral right to want to run for the presidency when the immediate southern president and the last president of the PDP were from the same former Rivers State with him. Wike was fighting a cause that was for himself in an attempt to prepare the ground for his eventual running,” he said.
