Wike Under Fire of Being PDP’s Problem

Dr. Don Pedro Obaseki, Director of Research, Strategy, and Documentation for the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party Atiku Abubakar, has said Nyesom Wike’s expulsion from the PDP is a task that must be completed for the party to survive.

Obaseki stated this in an interview with journalists in Abuja, on Monday.

According to him, Wike should be dismissed for his repeated betrayals of the party, his endless vermiculations against the party, and his request for the suspension or expulsion of former Vice President Atiku Abubakar.

He claims that Wike, who was the former governor of Rivers State before being named a minister, is responsible for the majority, if not all, of the PDP’s internal conflicts as a result of his excessive desire to defy the party’s presidential banner.

He said Wike has been distraught ever since his plotting, which began with his backing of Uche Secondus for the party chairmanship and culminated in his failure in the PDP Presidential primary.

Obaseki said, “Wike was (/is) the problem of the PDP and to expel Wike now is a task that must be done by the PDP.”

Obaseki who responded to Wike’s call for Atiku’s ouster from the PDP said, “The person who deserves to be expelled from the party is the man who is calling for the expulsion of others from the party.

“If anybody had done anything anti-party, it is Nyesom Wike. He has fought every known person within 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.”

The Director said that the minister’s assertion that he was battling the party for breaking its zoning laws was only extortion.

He asserts that the PDP never zoned its presidential ticket to the South for the 2023 elections and that the former governor of Rivers State had an agenda and had been charting his graph since 2021.

He said that because Nigerians deserve better, the fight to recover the party’s allegedly stolen mandate, which has been brought before the Supreme Court, would be carried through to its logical end.

Obaseki said, “The party never said power should go to the South because it was the turn of 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 zone that is 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 106km 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 was 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.”