The Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) and former governor of Rivers State, Nyesom Wike, said Nigeria’s main opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) will experience a “tsunami” if he leaves the party.
“If today I say I will move to another party, it will be a tsunami but we have said we are going to remain where we are,” Mr Wike said on Saturday, suggesting an exodus of party members from PDP if he dumped the party.
Mr Wike stated this at the PDP secretariat in Port Harcourt, during the party’s state congress, where he threatened to “put fire” in PDP governed states if their governors do not stay clear of the party’s affairs in Rivers.
The PDP governors, at a meeting in Jalingo, Taraba State, on 23 August, threw their weight behind Governor Siminalayi Fubara of Rivers over the crisis rocking the state.
They urged the PDP National Working Committee (NWC) to accord Mr Fubara his “rightful” position as the leader of the party.
The governors also urged the party’s NWC to revisit the outcome of the party’s ward and local government congresses in Rivers State, which Mr Wike’s loyalists had absolute control. Mr Fubara’s supporters boycotted the exercise because of a court order barring its conduct.
Speaking on Saturday, Mr Wike vowed that nobody can take over the PDP structure in Rivers from him and his allies who currently controlled the party.
“Let me assure all of you, not when we live will anybody take away the structure of the PDP from us. But let me tell people, I hear some governors say they will take over the structure and give it back to somebody,” Mr Wike said, apparently referring to Governor Fubara as the “somebody”.
“I pity those governors because I will put fire in their states. When God has given you peace, you say you don’t want peace – anything you see, you take (it),” he added.
The political feud between Mr Fubara and his predecessor, Mr Wike has torn Rivers PDP apart, splitting it into two factions.
Mr Wike’s total control of the party structure in the state and the failure of the party’s national leadership to address the perceived anomaly triggered speculations that Mr Fubara was planning to dump the party whose platform he was elected into office.
The speculations came after Mr Fubara told some senators who visited him in Port Harcourt that he and his supporters “were not doing party”.
“The party has failed us here,” Mr Fubara told members of the Senate Committee on Privatisation and Commercialisation.
Again, Mr Fubara, while receiving members of the PDP Board of Trustees (BOT) who visited him in Port Harcourt last month said he had at some point doubted his membership of the party.
“Honestly, if I was having any doubt about my membership first of this great party, I think today, I have gotten a reconfirmation that I am still, not minding the drama around, a member of the party,” Mr Fubara told the BOT members.
The governor dismissed speculations of his exit from the party as “a mere rumour and propaganda.”
“So, for those people outside who are carrying all sorts of rumours and propaganda, at least, this visit will put those propaganda to rest, and to tell the people that we are and we will remain members of the PDP,” he said.
Asdressing delegates on Saturday at the party secretariat in Port Harcourt, Mr Wike, without mentioning the governor’s name, said he was aware that some “unstable characters” in the PDP in the state would join the Action Peoples Party (APP).
“They thought we would come to them and start begging. Are we begging?” he queried in a remark that was intermittently disrupted by cheers and applause.
“Let them go and see what is happening in Abuja. So they know if you’re talking about politics in Nigeria, we are more relevant than them.”
Mr Fubara has not reacted to his speculated move to the APP. However, recent events in Rivers APP suggest the party may be Mr Fubara’s destination if he dumps the PDP.
For instance, the Rivers APP secretariat has been attacked twice in less than a month. Channels Television on Wednesday reported how gunmen shot a security guard at the APP secretariat in the state.
The attack came less than a month after the party secretariat in the New GRA of Port Harcourt, the state capital, was bombed.
The APP Chairperson in Rivers, Sunny Wokekoro, while taking reporters around the party secretariat, insisted that the attacks will not dissuade the party from participating in next month’s local government election in the state.
Punch newspaper last month reported that Mr Wokekoro has denied that Mr Fubara was a member of the APP but urged the governor to seek re-election under the APP platform in 2027.
Barely a week after the report, another newspaper, The Guardian, reported that Mr Wokekoro had dismissed speculations that Governor Fubara was funding the party.
According to the newspaper, the governor’s rumoured defection to the APP led to the bombing of the party secretariat in the state. The office complex had since been repaired.
“The governor is not in any way funding the APP,” Mr Wokekoro said, describing the PDP as a “dying” party.
When contacted, the Rivers State Commissioner of Information, Joseph Johnson, dismissed rumours that the governor was joining the APP.
Mr Johnson wondered why the people keep speculating Mr Fubara’s defection to APP when the governor “reenacted” to members of the PDP BOT that he remains a member of the PDP.
“He is a member of the PDP. He preaches PDP. It is in his DNA. He is the vice chairperson of the PDP Governors Forum. You cannot be a vice chairperson of the forum without being a member of the PDP.”
When reminded that Mr Wike while addressing the PDP delegates on Saturday, said he was aware that some “unstable characters” in the party were joining the APP, Mr Johnson declined comments, saying the minister did not mention Governor Fubara’s name.
“But to put the record straight, Mr Fubara is a bona fide member of the PDP and vice chairperson, Nigerian Governors Forum: PDP caucus,” Mr Johnson said.
Credit: Premium Times
