•Tony Ehilebo and Nyesom Wike
A chieftain of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Tony Ehilebo, has alleged that the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Nyesom Wike, is responsible for the crisis in the opposition party.
Ehilebo said this today during an interview on Channels Television, claiming Wike is still aggrieved over the outcome of the PDP presidential primary of 2022, an exercise he lost to ex-vice president Atiku Abubakar.
“I want to speak directly to the FCT minister because he is the root of this whole issue. He was upset about what happened in 2023, so he worked for the All Progressives Congress(APC),” Ehilebo said on the breakfast show.
He said “that grievance” has lingered longer than expected, adding that Wike’s action is below the standards expected of him.
“As a young man, we look up to people who should be standard, and what he is doing today doesn’t set the standard,” the PDP chieftain said.
Ehilebo warned Wike to be careful.
“History is not going to write itself another way; history is going to come along and say, ‘Here was a man that the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)had gifted everything to at every stage of his life’”.
The PDP chieftain alleged that ex-vice presidential candidate of the PDP in the 2019 election, Peter Obi, and the Minister of Works, Dave Umahi, defected to another party, partly due to Wike’s attitude.
“Wike, they said, had control of Anambra PDP. Peter [Obi] didn’t even have a say in his own state. We always appeal to the conscience of the man with the most power, who is Wike.
“He always somehow finds himself in power,” he said
Ehilebo said, “This is not to discredit him but to tell him that history is watching the actions he takes today.”
He, however, claimed Wike “has so devalued the party by keeping it in court and sustaining actions.
“We cannot deny his involvement with what is happening in the party, but he should remember that the party has a duty to uphold opposition action against the government,” he said.
The crisis in the PDP dates to the aftermath of the PDP presidential primary in 2022, an election Atiku won by beating Wike and other aspirants.
Aggrieved by the outcome of that exercise, Wike, then governor of Rivers State, argued that the party’s ticket should go to Southern Nigeria instead of Atiku, who is from the north.
Efforts to reconcile Wike and other aggrieved top shots of the PDP failed. The fallout led the ex-governor and his group, called the G-5, to back the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the 2023 presidential election.
President Bola Tinubu, the APC flagbearer in that poll, defeated Atiku, Obi, and others to clinch the country’s exalted seat. Upon assumption of office, Tinubu appointed Wike as FCT minister.
Last year, during the now nullified convention of the PDP, leaders of the party expelled Wike and other chieftains.
But the FCT minister has insisted he is still a member of the party, describing the convention in Oyo State as a jamboree.
He is also backing Tinubu for re-election in 2027, even though he said the PDP is not dead.
