Nyesom Wike, governor of Rivers State, took aim at former Vice President Atiku Abubakar on Monday, after Abubakar led Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) leaders in a protest outside the headquarters of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to express dissatisfaction with the results of the presidential election held on February 25.
Wike, speaking at the opening of the Chokocho-Igbodo Road in Rivers State’s Etche Local Government Area, admonished the party’s top brass for wanting to keep the northerners in control of the presidential ticket and the national chairperson seat.
“While other people are demonstrating, I am commissioning projects. I have not gone to do demonstration; my own is to commission projects and make my people happy,” Wike said.
Read also: PDP supporters march to INEC HQ with Atiku leading the protest
The Rivers governor also commended the people for voting for a southern President in the just-concluded elections.
According to him, Section 7(3)(c) of the PDP constitution recognise zoning and rotational presidency but the leadership of the party contravened the provisions of the party’s regulations.
“I owe nobody any apology at all. I am one of the apostles, one of those who stood firm that power must rotate to the South. This is for equity, this is for fairness and this is for justice.
“Whether you voted for Labour, I have no problem with you. Whether you voted for APC, I have no problem with you. That is what we have argued for: that the north has had it for eight years. Therefore the south must be there for eight years,” he said.
Wike and four other PDP governors known as the G5 called for Iyorchia Ayu’s resignation months leading up to the elections, arguing that a northerner should not be the PDP national chairman and presidential candidate.
In the recently ended elections, both Atiku and Ayu stood firm and did not give in to the governors’ demands.
While Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC) won the states of Oyo, Benue, and Rivers while Peter Obi of the Labour Party won the states of Enugu and Abia in the last presidential election, Atiku lost all five of the G5 states.
After his victory in 12 of Nigeria’s 36 states and strong showings in many others, INEC announced Tinubu as the next president. He received 8,794,726 votes, about two million more than his closest challenger, Atiku.
Atiku, 76, who has now campaigned for president six times, received 6,984,520 votes, while Obi, who, in less than a year, energized youthful voters in a manner some have characterized as unprecedented completed the race with 6,101,533.
The election, according to Obi and Atiku, will be contested in court because of irregularities. They found an issue with INEC for failing to comply with Section 60 of the Electoral Act 2022, which requires that election results be uploaded electronically from polling units to the commission’s Results Viewing Portal (IReV).
