A member of the Presidential Campaign Council has said that Wike has not fully accepted the choice of Atiku Abubakar.
This was made known yesterday as there was panic in the Peoples’ Democratic Party over alleged threat by Governor Nyesom Wike to resign as the South-South coordinator for the presidential candidate of the party, Atiku Abubakar. But indications showed that the governor was angry because he has been isolated in the scheme of things.
Instead of being on the driver’s seat like the case before the National Convention, the National Chairman of the party, Prince Uche Secondus, and the National Working Committee (NWC) defer more to Atiku, the National Leader of the party, Dr. Bukola Saraki, and the Governor of Bayelsa State, Henry Seriake Dickson who was one of the arrowheads of Atiku’s victory at the party’s convention.
Others attributed Wike’s anger to the spill over of the party primaries in which his candidate, Governor Aminu Waziri Tambuwal lost out.
“Wike himself put the NWC in place with his boy, Uche Secondus as the national chairman. To avoid this type of rancour, the party restricted the choice of directors to NWC members. There is no basis for Wike’s complaint because he owns the present NWC of PDP.”
A reliable source said: “Wike’s anger has to do with perceived gang up against him in the party to clip his wings. He only hid under alleged lack of consultations with him in constituting the PCC. He is just waking up to the reality that he has lost the grip of the party.
“Unknown to Wike, some party leaders decided to clip his wings. To jolt him, they toyed with the idea of changing Port Harcourt as the venue of the National Convention in order to gauge his mood. He became riotous to the extent of threatening the party and making allusions to Atiku.
“The second stage of the plot against Wike was the stoppage of the party’s leadership going cap in hand to him for funds. Some leaders of the party, including those who defected from the All Progressives Congress (APC) to PDP started financing the party covertly.
“The final stage was the emergence of Atiku as the presidential candidate of the party contrary to Wike’s permutations. He was devastated to the extent that he could not wait to listen to the acceptance speech of Atiku.”
“For instance, our evaluation so far revealed that it is only in Rivers State that government functionaries and party leaders do not work for Atiku because they are reading the body language of Wike. We are relying on a few friends and Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) to mobilise support. His threat to quit is just the icing on the cake.”
