What Atiku promised me in London – Wike

Rivers State Governor Nyesom Wike, on Friday, opened up on his conversation with the Peoples Democratic Party Presidential Candidate, Atiku Abubakar, at a meeting they held in London.

Recall that Atiku had last month flown to London for talks with Wike after Presidential Candidate of the All Progressives Congress, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, in the UK.

Wike who spoke at a media chat in PortHarcourt, said Atiku promised to work modalities for the resignation of Senator Iyorchia Ayu as PDP national Chairman.

But he said one week after the promised elapsed, instead of returning to explain the challenges encountered, Atiku began to use the party’s constitution as defence.

He stated, “You are talking about the constitution now, but you have forgotten that the constitution says there should be zoning of elective and party offices. You did not remember that the constitution says so. Now, is there nothing called expediency? Is there nothing called doctrine of necessity? Now, look at where we have found ourselves.”

“The presidency ought to have been zoned to the South, you knew it. What you’ve done is to show how clever or smart you are. Now, there is a crisis, you’re now falling back to that constitution to say that there will be a constitutional crisis. You cannot eat your cake and have it. You can’t.”

The Rivers governor, however, said that the PDP National Executive Committee could take the decision to accommodate Ayu’s resignation and seek ratification at a convention later after the elections.

He said such a decision would be for expediency purposes in order to allow for a Southerner to become national chairman of the PDP.

He said, “All we want is, now that you have given presidency to the North, let us (South) take our own chairman, because when they’re meeting for decision making, the presidential candidate sits there, national chairman sits there, the DG of campaign sits there, they take decision and come out and tell you to execute.

“Now, I hear the Board of Trustees (BOT) chairman is gone. Why did they put pressure on the BOT chairman to resign and then now you cannot put pressure on the national chairman to resign? When I was trying to run as governor, I had a lot of crises. But I had to let go of certain things for us to be able to win the election. The problem is that we have not won an election, we are arrogant.”

Wike said those who are advising Atiku to ignore Rivers State votes don’t wish him well in the forthcoming general elections.

“Anybody advising Atiku is a wicked man, and I know those who are doing it. They don’t have electoral value in their own unit. Some of them are from Edo. Look at their calculation. Buhari didn’t win in Rivers State, but Buhari won Lagos and Kano. Does Atiku have Lagos now, does he have Kano? The only one he has always had is Rivers and you say you don’t want them,” he said.