The Minister of Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nyesom Wike, has reacted angrily to the insinuation in some quarters that he is a political mole and outsider in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). He dared any PDP Governor or member of the National Working Committee of the party to openly say he is a mole or an outsider in the PDP.
Nyesom Wike who was a guest on Channels TV flagship political programme, Politics Today said:
“There is no governor today in the PDP, not anybody born of a woman can say I am an outsider. Who?”
“I dare anybody in PDP to come out on national television. I dare any governor, I dare any national working committee member to come out on national television and say I’m a mole! Let anybody come out”, Wike threw a challenge.
Wike went ahead to explain that before he took up his present ministerial position in the government of President Bola Tinubu who was elected on the platform of the All Progressives Congress, he wrote to the PDP hierarchy at the state level, zonal level and the national level including the Governor of his state Sim Fubara and sought for their advice on the offer by the President to which they all permitted him to take up the ministerial job.
“Before I took this appointment, I wrote to PDP. I wrote to PDP national, I wrote to PDP Zonal, I wrote to PDP in my state. My Governor (Sim Fubara) also signed a letter that I should take the appointment. Yes, it’s true”, he said.
“The Zonal party wrote I should accept, the National party wrote.” Who in PDP did not nominate names to President Tinubu for appointment? Who? Let them come and say they did not do it.
“The problem we have in this country is that some people think they’re smart. What I want to do I will do, what I don’t want to do I will not do.
“In 2023, did I not say I won’t support the PDP (Presidential) candidate because it is against equity, it is against fairness? Did I do it at the back? Did the PDP not win the governorship? Did the PDP not win the National Assembly? Did PDP not win the state assembly? I challenge any of them in any of this (PDP) states who won 100 percent as we have. How did we do it? Leadership!”
Wike says he will never support Fubara again in his political life…
The former Rivers State also vowed never to support or lend any political endorsement for his successor in office, Governor Siminalayi Fubara, on his political journey.
“I will never support Fubara in my political life again. Anybody that knows me, knows it’s not about me. People laboured to put up a structure. People laboured, you wouldn’t have even taken the 50th position. I sacrificed to talk to the Ogonis, I sacrificed to talk to several other people that let us go this way”, Wike stated.
“You turned it that I am asking for N50 billion, N100 billion. You turned up lies against me, I brought you up, put you here. Today, I turned to be over demanding.”
Wike and his estranged political godson, Fubara has been locked in fierce battle since late last year for the control of the political structure of Rivers State.
The PDP Governors forum earlier attempted to lend support to Sim Fubara in his political battle with Nyesom Wike by urging the national working committee and NEC of the PDP to hand over the structure of the PDP in Rivers State fully to Fubara. This irked Wike who vowed to stoke fire in the political structure of the PDP states whose governors are trying to meddle in Rivers internal politics.
However, in what appears to be victory for Nyesom Wike and those loyal to him, the National Working Committee of the PDP endorsed the Congresses held by the Wike faction of the PDP in its meeting held on Friday. This invariably puts Wike in pole position to control the affairs of the party in the state further leaving Governor Sim Fubara closer to the exit door of the party.
Wike speaks on Edo governorship election
Wike also vowed he would not support Asue Ighodalo, the candidate of outgoing Edo State Governor, Godwin Obaseki who is also the flag bearer of the PDP in the gubernatorial election slated for September 21.
Wike described Gov. Obaseki as an ingrate, stressing that he has told the Edo governor that he would not support his candidate and revealed that Obaseki visited him on two occasions alongside Ighodalo to seek his support for the PDP candidate.
Nyesom Wike also dismissed allegations that he influenced the appointment of his cousin, Anugbum Onuoha, as the Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) in Edo State, and warned that nobody born of a woman can intimidate his cousin.
“For accusing my first cousin they have made a mistake. You know why, I thought I was strong, but in the case of my cousin, the Edo State Resident Electoral Commissioner, Anugbum Onuoha, you are beating a rock. He will not. He can never, even the INEC chairman cannot tell him what to do. He will ask you to go to hell with your job. He is that stubborn.
“For more than one year now, my cousin has been there as Edo REC. He (Obaseki) never knew he was Wike’s Cousin, until now that election is close.
“How will I influence my enemy’s appointment? So if I hear that my cousin is to be appointed, I should go and call Imams and Pastors and tell them to please not allow my cousin to be appointed? I shouldn’t say, please help him to be appointed. What nonsense is that?
“If you remove him now, will he not go to another state? Will there not be an election there? Will there not be an election in another state for Christ’s sake?
“Take, for example, they said I am controlling the PDP National Working Committee, isn’t that true? Now, these were the same National Working Committee who had a press conference saying that they should remove my cousin as REC in Edo State, yet they say I am controlling them.
“You know, they blow hot and cold. Today it favours them, they are happy, but if it doesn’t favour them, they speak differently.
“Let me tell anybody who cares, I don’t care what you think, but you can never intimidate my cousin. Go and ask about him. You can’t. It is in the blood. He will do the right thing, but you can never intimidate him just like me.
“Nobody can, nobody born of a woman can intimidate me. So if you think that propaganda will work, take him to Sokoto, Katsina, or Bauchi, and he will stand firm”, Wike added.