Society Gists

A chieftain of the Peoples Democratic Party, Pedro Obaseki, has accused the Federal Capital Territory Minister, Nyesom Wike, of plotting to weaken the structures of the party to make it easier for him to run on its platform for the 2027 presidency.

Obaseki who worked as Director of Planning and Strategy for the PDP 2023 Presidential Campaign Council also described Wike as a ‘nobody’ who rode on the structures of the party and the goodwill of some of its chieftains to power only to betray them when he got to the top.

He stated this on Monday in an interactive session with a handful of journalists in Abuja against the backdrop of a call by the FCT minister to suspend Atiku from the PDP.

Speaking as a guest on the Channels Television programme, Politics Today on Thursday, Wike was quoted as saying, “Look at the areas that the PDP did not win because of high-handedness, because of greed, because of impunity.

“If the PDP had done what they were supposed to do, then you could have talked about that. There should be equity, there should be justice, there should be fairness and that is why I am calling on the National Working Committee to suspend the presidential candidate (Atiku Abubakar) and people like Aminu Tambuwal so that they can rebuild the party.”

Reacting to Wike’s television outing, however, Obaseki said, “It is not hidden that the only thing Wike is interested in is becoming the President of our country, and anything that seems to stand wittingly or otherwise in his achieving that quest will be flushed away and that is what he has been doing.

“What we are seeing now is that he is fighting to decimate the PDP, so that he can also decimate the All Progressives Congress to create a vehicle for himself to run in 2027, but we are not stupid.

“It is important that we caution Wike. There is a limit to the continued brigandage of a man who should be grateful to God. Chinua Achebe in his book, Things Fall Apart, warned us that ‘Those whose palm kernels were cracked for them by benevolent spirits should not forget to be humble.’ But someone like Wike… has continued to overstretch his luck.

“Who is Wike? He is a nobody. He rode on the back of the electorate of Rivers State to national prominence and betrayed everybody along the way. From being a Local Government chairman, a Minister of State, became Governor of Rivers State and now minister of the FCT.”

He noted that the former Rivers State governor had been in the business of championing a personal cause for long noting that he fought for the removal of his friend and political ally, Uche Secondus, as the PDP chairman because he considered him an obstacle to his presidential aspiration in 2023.

Obaseki continued, “Wike plotted a graph from the time he supported Prince Uche Secondus to arrest the structures of the PDP. He then forced the removal of Secondus because he knew that as chairman of the party, his own local government and senatorial district, it’s goodbye to his running for the presidency.

“But he ran for that same presidency and lost. He swore to support whoever won and reneged on every point along the way.

“Time has come for the PDP and those who want to strengthen democracy in Nigeria to see Wike for what he really is. He is brave enough to come to the public space to say that he is the sole financier of the PDP, a party founded in 1998.

“This is a party where he became governor in a state where (Peter) Odili was already a governor for eight years on the platform of the party; where Rotimi Amaechi had been governor for seven years before defecting to the APC.”

While noting that it is Wike who ought to be suspended from the PDP, Obaseki narrated what he called a number of misdeeds by the former Rivers State governor, which prompted other leaders of the PDP to defect to other parties.

“Wike should tell us why Atiku should be suspended from the party. The person who deserves to be suspended from the party is the man who is calling for the expulsion of others from the party. Wike is the one who created a cult within the party and called it the G-5.

Against the will, constitution and structures of the party, he campaigned against the party. If anybody had done anything anti-party, it is Wike.

He has fought every known person within the party. If you remember, Bello Matawalle, former Governor of Zamfara State, cited him as the reason for leaving the party. David Umahi cited him as the reason for leaving the party.

Prof Ben Ayade cited him as the reason for leaving the party. He has become the proverbial tortoise featuring in every bad story.”