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The buildup to the 2023 presidential election witnessed a group of five PDP governors, including Wike, refusing to back the party’s presidential nominee, a northerner.
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Instead, they backed opposition candidates from the southern region, claiming that they were fighting for fairness.
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However, the de facto leader of the group has been accused of having insincere motives.
Eko Hot Blog reports that Dino Melaye, the spokesperson of the Atiku/Okowa Presidential Campaign Council, has narrated how Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike, lobbied to be the running mate to Atiku Abubakar, the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
Recall that Wike, alongside four other governors, had refused to back Atiku, a northerner, in the presidential election, instead calling for a southern presidency.
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However, Melaye, in an interview on AIT on Tuesday night, said the Rivers governor pushed the southern presidency agenda because he was not chosen as the running mate to Atiku as he lobbied.
The PDP governorship aspirant in Kogi State stated that Wike called him “19 times in two hours promising heaven and earth” should Atiku announce him as the vice presidential candidate.
“I want to tell you that Wike is a pretentious character, a liar and he has no iota of integrity. Wike was calling me when Atiku Abubakar was to announce his running mate, I have records and I have printed it out and I am waiting for him. He called me 19 times in 2 hours begging us to convince Atiku Abubakar to make him the Vice Presidential candidate,” he said.
“So [I’m surprised to] see him lying on TV saying ‘because of the south, because of Southern Nigeria, the presidency must go to south’. He was lobbying us and begging us, promising us heaven and earth to convince Atiku Abubakar to make him the Vice Presidential candidate, to the extent that he was at the airport.
“I have a video, he spent hours in the airport waiting for me to call him to say Atiku has picked you as Vice President, he was at the airport waiting, calling me, calling my brother and friend we were in the senate together. I have witnesses. I even gave the phone to Abudul Ningi to speak with him. I gave the phone to Senator Uzamere to speak with him. He was begging all of us, promising heaven and earth. Atiku should announce him, it was around 1 or so that I told him; Oga, nobody go give you vice president.
“That was when he left and then flew back; so the man was so desperate to be Vice President. Because you didn’t get it; you now started a southern agenda. I don’t believe in such unprincipled, zero integrity character like Nyesom Wike.”
He also accused Wike of pushing the chairmanship to the north so as not to affect his ambition of becoming president.
“Wike was the one who brought Ayu, he was the one who sponsored Ayu and that was why Wike made all the governors to endorse Ayu and that was why there was no election in the national chairman’s office during the convention, Ayu was unopposed,” Melaye explained.
“You are the one that brought Ayu. So, when did you now realise that Ayu is a northerner. He was doing that, that time to satisfy his own selfish ambition of becoming the Presidential candidate from the south so he didn’t want the chairmanship at that time to go to the south so that it will not affect his ambition of becoming president from the south, so he pushed the chairmanship to the north and thinking that he will be able to bribe Ayu to choose him as the presidential candidate. When Ayu refused to do the wrong thing, then Ayu became an enemy.”
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Wike eventually backed Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC), whom the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) declared as the winner of the poll.
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