Supporters of PDP’s Atiku Abubakar and Labour Party’s Peter Obi took to social media to express their sadness and disappointment over Wike’s decision to back the presidential ambition of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu of the ruling party, APC.
Nyesom Wike, the Rivers State Governor leading the G-5 rebellion within the PDP, provided the clearest indication yet of his political stance in the 2023 presidential election by directing his closest aides and allies, including on social media, to commence public support of the APC’s Tinubu.
It’s about time!#BAT23 pic.twitter.com/NXzDEmwcuy
— Chris (@Topboychriss) January 31, 2023
The move was a culmination of meetings and intrigues spanning different states of the country and in Europe where Wike, together with other governors sworn to doom Atiku’s ambition in the PDP, met with the former Lagos governor to negotiate a partnership.
Although the development boosted Tinubu’s campaign and strengthened his position as the frontrunner, the opposite was true for the PDP and the Labour Party.
His turn to Tinubu meant that PDP lost a key central figure and mobilizer who kept it alive after mass defections to the APC and prompt abandonment by Atiku, who fled to Dubai after his 2019 defeat, crippled the party’s operations across the country.
For the Labour Party, meanwhile, Wike’s choice of Tinubu killed their hopes of expanding their inadequate support level in the South-South region of the country where the Rivers Governor enjoys broad support and popularity.
Members of both camps, the PDP and Labour Party, have since expressed their disappointment over the development on social media, with some blaming the failure to acquire Wike’s highly-covered support on the leaderships of their parties.
Unlike Atiku and Obi, the APC candidate Bola Tinubu has now beaten a clear path to the presidency, having secured a reliable vote and support base in all the regions of the country to meet the constitution’s requirement to score the majority of votes cast and 25% of votes in at least 24 states of the country.