Nyesom Wike on Saturday hit back at former vice president Atiku Abubakar, labelling the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential flagbearer in the 2023 election as a serial loser.
Atiku had taken a swipe at Wike – the Minister of the FCT and a former governor of Rivers State – over the local government elections in the state.
The Action Peoples Party (APP) won 22 out of the 23 local government chairmanship posts in the exercise in the PDP-led Rivers, a move Atiku said is a reflection of Wike’s rejection by the people. But weeks after, the minister said having contested the presidential election in 2019 and 2023 as the PDP candidate and lost, Atiku has been rejected by Nigerians.
“We never contested local government elections. Did we contest [Rivers LG election]? Did we pick form? I hear Atiku Abubakar say, ‘Oh they have rejected me in Rivers State. Okay, assuming though not conceding, he had lost so many times, Nigerians have also rejected him,” Wike said in Port Harcourt at a luncheon he organised in honour of members of the Rivers State Assembly loyal to him.
“If you say for an election we did not contest; never participated that shows Nigerians have rejected us, it is okay. You that contested and failed woefully, Nigerians have rejected you, therefore pack and go home.”
Wike, a chieftain of the PDP serving as a minister under the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), fell out with Atiku in the lead-up to the 2023 election.
Atiku had clinched the PDP ticket for the exercise after beating Wike and other aspirants. Since then, their relationship turned sour. The then-Rivers State governor faulted the ex-VP’s emergence as the party’s flagbearer, arguing that it was the turn of southern Nigeria to produce a president (Atiku is from the north).
That pushed Wike and some of his men in the “G-5” which enjoyed membership of five then-governors. They worked against Atiku with the PDP losing Rivers, one of its strongholds to the APC in the presidential election.
Tinubu who flew the APC’s flag in the presidential poll thereafter appointed Wike as a minister. While there have been calls to suspend him from the PDP, the former Rivers State governor maintained that his action was prompted by a desire for equity and justice – returning the presidency to southern Nigeria where he and Tinubu hail from.