There are indications that the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nyesom Wike, may join the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC). According to Lagos Reporters, Wike’s loyalists within the APC met with the National Working Committee (NWC) of the party, led by Dr. Abdulahi Ganduje, at the national secretariat of the APC in Abuja yesterday.
The delegation, led by Tony Okocha, told Ganduje that the party should contact Wike whenever they wanted to consider his loyalists for appointments. However, this news was met with opposition from the Amaechi faction of the party. Wike is a former governor of Rivers State and a member of the PDP.
He has been at odds with the PDP leadership since losing the party’s presidential primary to Atiku Abubakar. There is speculation that his inclusion on the campaign council for the Bayelsa state governorship election, which was later retracted, may have contributed to his rumored defection.
In response to Amaechi’s faction’s complaint, Okocha expressed disappointment that a faction of the party in Rivers State led by Tonye Cole and Dakuku Peterside had recently paid a courtesy visit to the NWC and were lobbying for political appointments despite working against the party. He alleged that prior to the election, Amaechi had called a meeting where he informed them that he had made a deal with the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, and instructed them to vote for the PDP instead of the party’s candidate, Bola Tinubu.
According to Okocha, the political group that Cole, Dakuku, and others belong to in Rivers State has formed alliances with the PDP Presidential Candidate, Atiku Abubakar.
In a private meeting held at the leader’s residence in Port Harcourt, attended by Cole, Dakuku, Chukwudi Dimkpa, and other members of the inner caucus, it was announced that they would work to ensure Tinubu’s failure in Rivers State and instead push for Atiku’s victory in the presidential election. They were tasked with mobilizing their supporters in the 6,868 polling units, 319 wards, and 23 local government areas in Rivers State.
“We have pictorial, visual, and individual testimonies to this. So, how did they contribute to the party’s presidential victory in Rivers State and unable to deliver their members who contested National Assembly elections on the same day?”
Okocha said since 1999, the PDP had always won both the presidential and governorship elections back to back in Rivers State.
He added: “How did the APC win the presidential election in Rivers State, while the PDP won 13 out of 15 federal constituencies in Rivers State, losing one to the APC and One to the Labour Party?
“How did the PDP win all three Senatorial seats in Rivers State? How did PDP trounce the APC to a distant second position in the governorship election in Rivers State?
“What magic could have made it impossible for the PDP not to win the Presidential Election in Rivers State, even after Amaechi, et al, voted for the PDP in their units and wards?” he queried.
He added: “Mr. Chairman, we summarise that the only group in APC Rivers State legitimate to seek compensation for the victory of APC/Tinubu in Rivers State, is the one here. Please contact us for our dues and appointments through the leader of the Political infantry in Rivers State, who is serving in the Federal Cabinet presently.”
Reacting, Ganduje urged the political actors in the state not to overheat the polity and noted that the travails of APC in Rivers started in 2015 when the party had a government and lost it.
Ganduje said: “I could recall vividly that the governor said at that time, people should not go out for voting some few hours before voting because he complained of intimidation.
“We asked how can a ruling government prevent its people from going out and voting. I said no doubt we have lost this election? Because whatever you do, you didn’t even go to vote, then how do you claim that you have won the election?
“That was the beginning of the travail, I don’t want to go into details. Because you have mentioned more than the details I know.”
The chairman admitted that the party in Rivers State was highly fictionalized, that is a fact about it.
Ganduje noted, “Our party in River State is highly fictionalized, that is a fact about it. Litigations killed our party in Rivers state, that one is a fact. And one important question that you asked. How come we won the presidential election and lost the state election? You said that was a miracle. If you say a miracle, there must be a messiah.”
“We have to capitalize on what we have, we have to capitalize on the fact that we have won the national election in River State. We are not expecting anything less again, but give us a chance to see how we can have the states and the national election together.
“Whatever it is, we have received your address and the party will come in and see how we can get a solid party leadership so that we can move forward. But what we are begging, is not to overheat the system.
“Overheating the system, some will go for litigation and then a vicious cycle will come again. We don’t want too much analysis because they say too much analysis leads to paralysis,” he said.