The Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike, has said that he will not allow his fellow party members to “kill” the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
Mr Wike stated this on Friday in an interview with AIT, monitored by PREMIUM TIMES.
The television interview was transcribed and the text of it published in bits on Mr Wike’s Twitter page @GovWike.
“I will not allow anybody to kill PDP. They have the capacity to move to APC. I don’t and I cannot move to APC. So, anybody that tries to do something to destroy PDP, I will not allow you. Anybody that I see that has the trait to destroy the PDP, I will not allow it,” Mr Wike said in the interview.
Mr Wike’s remark highlights an internal crisis with the opposition party, which the governor spoke much about in the interview.
“An opposition party that ought to be united, to work, to take over the affairs of government, because people are waiting for this opportunity, but the current leadership of NWC is not prepared for that. Rather, what they have done is to constitute some people to sow a seed of discord among governors for their own selfish interest. And that will boomerang; that will consume them,” the governor said.
“Yes. If you ask me as a member of PDP, am I ready to support PDP to take over, yes. But, if you ask me currently as it is, is the leadership of the party willing for us to harvest this opportunity for a change, I will say no.
“PDP ought to have harvested from the inefficiency of the APC; from the maladministration of the APC. Ordinarily, that is what the opposition party ought to do.
“The present National Working Committee is not interested or doing anything to take over the realms of government in 2023. When your interest is to remain in power, you are no longer interested to win election,” the governor said.
The PDP National Chairman, Uche Secondus, is Mr Wike’s political ally who got immense support from the governor to win the position.
Mr Wike also played a noticeable role in the trouncing of the All Progressives Congress in the 2020 Edo governorship election, and recently engaged in a war of words with the governor of Ebonyi State, David Umahi over his defection from the PDP to APC.
In 2019, while he publicly congratulated President Muhammadu Buhari for winning re-election, Mr Wike said it was better to do so than to behave like other PDP governors who were visiting Mr Buhari secretly at night.
“So many PDP governors go to see him (Buhari) in his house in the night,” the governor said. “I have never gone and I will not go.”
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