Politically, Nyesom Wike, Governor of Rivers State is finished and his future ambition of becoming Nigerian President permanently sealed, Atiku Abubakar, presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), said on Wednesday.
The position of the former Vice President, was conveyed on Wednesday, via Danial Bwala, spokesman of the PDP Presidential Campaign Council (PDP-PCC), while appearing on The Morning Show, a breakfast programme on Arise Television, while reacting to the botched campaign of the party in Rivers State on the ground of insecurity.
Atiku had on Monday, announced that he would be putting off his presidential campaign in the state to avoid bloodshed, due to a series of actions Wike had allegedly taken, indicating grave implications in that direction, saying going ahead with the already planned activities, would lead to trouble.
Amplifying the development, Bwala, capturing the sentiments in the Atiku camp, which has recently indicated that it has pulled off its gloves and gone for the bare-knuckle battle, unlike the initial pillow-fight approach it earlier adopted, by pleading with the governor, and the G-5 Integrity Group he leads, fired from all cylinders during the outing.
Regretting that Wike had continued toeing the hardline position, even after the entire PDP leadership tried to placate him, which had now led to the thwarting of the presidential campaign, he stressed that the initial move to appeal to the governor, was more of trying to bring everyone on board and not for his electoral value and his impact in the presidential project of the ex-VP.
Stating that Wike was inconsequential to Atiku’s victory, he said, Buhari won the presidential elections on two occasions in Nigeria without winning the state, adding that in this case, the PDP would sweep the state with nothing less than 75 per cent votes, without the governor, as Rivers was not only the soul of the part, but had benefitted more than any other state from the party.
His words: “Buhari did not win Rivers State, but he won elections. But we’re going to get 75 per cent of the votes in Rivers, because if you go down to the field, they want this fellow to leave that place so that they can rest. He’s kind of a lame-duck. You see, at the time of your second term, you’re less popular than the first term. He has money to bring media attention to what he does. But if you sit down with the people, I believe that on the day of the election, there would be members of his household that will vote for Atiku.
“How can Rivers State not vote for PDP? That is the party they can claim ownership. That is the party that brought blessing to them from 1999 till date. I don’t think there is any part of the country in terms of geo-political zone that has benefitted more from the PDP than the South South. Are they going to leave that to vote for the party that is unknown? Are they going to throw away all that because of one man that is fizzling away and disappearing to the oblivion? Certainly not! Because, the people of Rivers are intelligent, they know what they want, and they know when to decide on what they want.
“Wike is a great man in the sense of the respect we give to everyone. Wike may have done well for the party in the past, but he has destroyed his legacy. That is the summary of it all…I’m telling you that he’ll regret when he comes out by saying, I’d have done things better.
“When you have power, you must exercise it with dignity, candour and honour. He has destroyed his political future, let me be honest with you. This is a man who is seeking to run for presidency sometime in the future. He has cancelled his image in the entire region of the country and he’s cancelling in other parts of the country.”