2019: PRESIDENCY PLANTED PRESIDENTIAL ASPIRANTS IN PDP, A LOT OF PEOPLE WILL DIE – WIKE
2019:
PRESIDENCY PLANTED PRESIDENTIAL ASPIRANTS IN PDP, A LOT OF PEOPLE WILL DIE –
WIKE
Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike, has announced that members of
the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, in the state will collectively decide on who
to support among the numerous presidential aspirants for the 2019 elections.
Governor Wike gave this indication ahead of the presidential
primary of the PDP, while responding to questions in an interview at the
Government House in Port Harcourt.
The Governor said no single individual would determine the
direction of Rivers PDP delegates but leaders of the party will meet at the
state level and decide as a team on who to support.
Governor Wike denied assigning campaign coordinator to any of the
presidential aspirants from the north, who he said had gone to other governors
and have been given campaign coordinators.
He said several presidential aspirants have been coming to visit
him and to request he nominate a liaison in support of their candidature, but
he declined.
Wike mentioned former Vice President, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar,
Alhaji Sule Lamido, Senator Ahmed Makarfi, Senate President Bukola Saraki,
Governor AminuTambuwal of Sokoto State, Malam Ibrahim Shekarau and Alhaji
Attahiru Bafarawa among those who have visited him.
The Governor said nobody would blindfold the people of Rivers
State into supporting a presidential aspirant with compromised credentials.
Governor Wike also alleged that some of the PDP Presidential
aspirants were being sponsored by the APC and the Presidency, stressing that he
cannot be misled.
He also claimed that the head of one of the security agencies in
the country had approached him to support one of the presidential aspirants.
Wike also tipped himself to remain in office after the 2019
elections, until 2023, when he said Rivers people would collectively choose his
successor.
He said: “At the end of the day, the leadership of the party will
meet at the state level and decide where we are heading to. Then we will all be
together. No one individual can do it alone. So, Rivers state will move as a
team, I will listen to the leadership of the party, then we will move forward.
“Who are we going to support? Where is the national survey? Who is
more popular? This is how politics is played. I challenge any of the
presidential aspirants from the north who have gone to other governors and they
have given them campaign coordinators, I challenge them to mention if I have
given them one name.
“Can anybody say I have met him one day to say support so, so, and
so Presidential aspirant? People have been coming here and I told them I will
not, and I will never, nominate anybody to be a liaison to any of the
presidential aspirants. Not one person, I challenge them.
“But one thing you must take home is that I cannot be misled, I
cannot be blindfolded; I know what’s going on. I know what the presidency and
the APC are doing to plant a presidential aspirant in the PDP.
“I have not even mentioned how a very senior official of a
security agency in the country told me which of the candidates to support! You
can imagine me as a governor and the head of a security agency would tell me to
support one or two persons. Head of security agency who is in a government
controlled by the APC! Come on, you direct me on who to support for president?
“It won’t happen in my state, but I know they will kill a lot of
persons. I can tell you they will kill a lot of us. No problem, this is the
sacrifice we have to make for democracy to thrive.
“I’m on record and my friends, my colleagues, they know me and I
have told them. I am a student of history, mention who has survived it. That
you put your life, you put your blood to bring somebody. So as a student of
History, I know it does not work that way.
“I will do what I have come to do, to serve my people and when my
time has come to an end, those who want to run, let them run. Let the people of
Rivers State decide, it is you, it is him. .And that is the problem we are
having, people want to continue to be Godfathers, how and that is the problem we
are having without development.
“When I hear some people make comments, with all due respect, I
don’t want to talk about persons, when I hear about one, they call him Tonye
Princewill and I laugh. The young man forgot the interview He granted the
Premium Times, He forgot the interview, and people forget history. That these
things are documented, so I now hear what he’s saying, I say oh my God.
“How much Rivers State assets were sold by the previous Government
to his friend and how it was used to fund election of Buhari and the rest. He
forgot easily, today He’s saying a different thing and I say what kind of
characters do we have?
Details of Governor Wike’s comments were contained in a statement
released by his Special Assistant on Electronic Media, Simeon Nwakaudu.
