Staunch Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) leaders in Rivers and loyalists of Governor Nyesom Wike have told the party’s presidential candidate Atiku Abubakar, that he is on a path to losing again in 2023.
Wike’s foot soldiers and grassroots leaders fumed at alleged ongoing attempt by Atiku and his think tanks to create a crisis in Rivers PDP by dividing the party and building a separate structure from that of the governor ahead of the election.
One of the pro-Atiku leaders and former two-time Senator, Lee Meeba, had taken a swipe on the governor in an interview he granted to a television station in Abuja accusing him of dictatorship.
He said Wike had vowed to stop them from campaigning for Atiku in the state without his expressed permission lamenting that the governor frustrated his bid to contest the governorship primary of the party.
Meeba, who was recently kicked out of the Governing Council of the Elechi Amadi Polytechnic as its Chairman by the Governor, said Wike did not allow him employ anybody in the institution and refused to fund the polytechnic because of him.
He said the Governor was also furious that he and some PDP leaders met with Atiku recently and promised him that Rivers would vote a PDP candidate in 2023.
But Wike’s men said the move by Atiku to recruit some leaders they described as spent forces and Abuja-based politicians to fight the Governor showed he was not interested in genuine reconciliation.
The Chairman of Emohua Local Government Area and Wike’s staunch loyalist, Dr. Chidi Lloyd, took swipe at Lee Meeba describing him as a coward without electoral value.
He said it was cowardice elevated to the national level for Meeba, a two-time governor to claim that Wike ordered him not to run a governorship election.
On Atiku, he said: “It is obvious that Atiku wasn’t destined to be president with his body language. As a Catholic I will tell you that clearly. I haven’t seen a man, who is given delicious food and he pushes it down.
“Nobody abdicates his pulpit to intruders. Atiku came back to the PDP from the APC, contested the 2019 election, lost and proceeded to Dubai. He was on that long vacation until the election period. He came back.
“This is somebody the former President told us that if he had handed over to him God wouldn’t have forgiven him. Do they think that we don’t have memory? It is in Obasanjo’s book. Rather than look for ways and means to pull everybody together on a table, the likes of Lee are running to Abuja. Is that where the election will hold?
“I want to remind Lee that his school, the secondary school he attended in his community is leaking. He attended Government Secondary School, Rumeme. No roof”.
Lloyd insisted that the plot by Atiku and those loyal to him to create crisis in Rivers PDP was an exercise in futility because the party’s leaders were solidly behind Governor Wike.
He said: “There is no crisis in Rivers PDP. Governor Wike is in charge. We are satisfied with Governor Wike. That was why some of us who went to APC came back to join forces with him. Can’t you see what is happening that there is no other political party in Rivers? We are solidly behind Wike.
A former Commissioner for Information and former member of the House of Representatives, Ogbonna Nwuke, said Atiku was chasing shadows for trying to divide the Rivers PDP.
Nwuke said: “It is not possible to divide the Rivers PDP. It is not realisable because it is historic. Right from the days of the NPN, it is difficult for those who are Abuja-based as it is now to take control of the power apparatus.
“This means that what has constantly dictated the way Rivers people view politics is their interest. The Rivers interest is Paramount at all times. Many Rivers people agree that there is no way they can be involved with a politician without knowing what is coming to their state.
“The coalition of Abuja politicians has never really won at home. The home front are always united and able to overrun them and that it will happen in 2023”.
