Don’t blame me if you lose the 2023 election, Wike tells Atiku

Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike, on Friday, told the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, to blame those around him if he lose the 2023 general election.

The governor spoke on Friday during the inauguration of the Rivers State House of Assembly Quarters, an estate tastefully completed by his administration to provide befitting accommodation for the state lawmakers. The project was inaugurated by House of Representatives Speaker, Femi Gbajabiamila.

Wike said the former Vice President should be mindful of those around him if he wants to win next year’s election because they might cost him to lose presidential ambition.

Governor Wike who has been locked in a cold war with Atiku since the presidential candidate picked Delta State governor, Ifeanyi Okowa, as his running mate, warned that he should not be blamed if the PDP lost the presidential contest.

He denied filing a suing against Atiku and the PDP over the party’s presidential primary.

Wike said:” People have said I went to court against Atiku Abubakar. I want to say categorically that if I had a reason to go to court I will go to court. But I didn’t go to court. I just have to say it for Nigerians to know.

“I have kept quiet and busy delivering the dividends of democracy for my party to win the election; people are busy plotting how they will win the election, but others are busy trying to see how they will lose the election.

“If they lose the election nobody should call my name. I have told the candidate, you will lose this election and you will win this election because of the people around you.

“Anybody who knows me knows that if I was going to court, I would have gone to court within two weeks after the primaries because it is a pre-election matter and after two weeks you can’t go to the court.

“The legal adviser of the party called me and I told him you know there is mischief going on;  you know me very well if I am going to court it is not those kinds of lawyers I would have used and I don’t even know the lawyers. I want to tell the candidate (Atiku) that it is his group that is doing all these things. Let the world hear.

“They are the ones plotting all these things thinking that they would spoil my name. You cannot. The other day they said I removed all PDP flags in Government House.

“We are supposed to be talking about how you will win the election, not about these people. They are not doing him any favour, rather they are trying to make him not to win the election. But if that is what they want, I wish them good luck.

“But after my commissioning of projects, nobody should say Wike has started. When I start, I have been on my own, they are looking for my trouble. Allow peace to reign. If you say your mother will not sleep, you too you will not sleep at the appropriate time.”

Wike asked Atiku to direct people around him to return to their individual states and work for his victory at the polls.

His words: “I am busy commissioning projects, tell those who are supporting you to also go and commission projects to win their states. This is my own campaign to make our candidates to win the election.

“Leave me to do my work but you are worried, concocting things every day. Social media cannot make you to win election. The election is by the people. Tell those who are with you in Abuja to go home and campaign for you. Leave Wike alone.”

Wike told the audience how he led a plot to deny Gbajabiamila the speakership of the House of Representatives and Ahmed Lawan the Presidency of the Senate.

He accused his fellow  PDP governors and other leaders of betraying their collective position by going behind him to support Gbajabiamila.

But he acknowledged that despite his plot against Gbajabiamila, the Speaker has never denied Rivers State its dues adding that he (Gbajabiamila) even intervened to ensure that money owed to the state by the Federal Government was paid to it.

Wike said: “Mr Speaker, I didn’t invite you here because you are an APC member. I invited you because of the role you played for Rivers State to get their money and I said come and see what I have done with part of that money.

“I was one of the last states that the federal government refunded the money. Nobody wanted to give me because they said I was fighting for PDP. But you helped me without demanding a dime from me.

“I was one of those who plotted that you should not be Speaker. I have no regrets because my business is not to help their party at that time, even now. My business is to make you people uncomfortable.

“It was in Government Lodge Rivers State in Abuja where we plotted he should not go. PDP governors sold me out. They supported you even when we had agreed as a party that Femi should not go, Lawan should not go.

“They went back and supported you. That was why you made Ndudi Elumelu, the Minority Leader even when we wrote you a letter against it. People don’t like the truth, but the truth must be told at all times. They were the people who sold PDP. The truth must be told at all time. Now they are saying we will impeach Buhari.

“You don’t have the balls. Ordinary to override the electoral law they couldn’t. They think they can use Nigerians up and down. Something you know you cannot do why did you say it out?

“I told you in my house before we came here that I plotted against you. If I see any other way to plot I will plot because we are in different parties and anything that will make you uncomfortable is my business. But you are a good man.

“You called me one day and demanded a name for an appointment. I didn’t believe it. I gave you a name and the person was appointed. It is not about party.”

Wike said it was a similar betrayal attitude that made Atiku lose the 2019 presidential election.

He said: “In 2019 they all betrayed us. Buhari wouldn’t have won the 2019 election because you wouldn’t have had the spread. But all the states in the South-South made Buhari have 25 per cent. Rivers didn’t give Buhari 25 per cent. I challenge anybody.

“Today, people will be talking about PDP when we were supposed to have won the election in 2019, Rivers State gave the highest votes, the highest logistics. Let anybody come and contradict me. Today people are talking about PDP and that they are loyal. They sold our party in the 2019 election.

“I told Atiku the other day, all these governors you think are good with you what happened in 2019? Nobody wants to say the truth. Today instead of plotting how to win an election, they are talking about Wike. Wike is not important, why are you worried? Allow Wike to rest.

“Everybody go to your state and deliver. I don’t stay in Abuja. I don’t sleep there. I am here every day with my people. See our report card and see why you will vote for our governorship candidate and all the other candidates. We have done well.

“Nigerians, ask your leaders to account for the money they gave to them. I can account for the money. See part of the money. Go to the judge’s quarters; flyovers one to 12, the Law School built in one year. I contested the election to render service to the people of the state.”

The governor said the legislative quarters were built to provide conducive accommodations for state lawmakers to make good laws adding that all the houses had been furnished.

He said: “Look at the environment legislators are going to live in. They will make good laws. Some people say it is money. It is not money, the little you have, shows what you can do. It is about your commitment, love and passion for your state and country.”

He said persons after him would soon hear from him at the right time saying he would choke all of them.

He said: “I haven’t started politics. What I am doing now is to deliver dividends of democracy. That is my business. When I start politics, I will choke them. They think it was a mistake when I went to read Political Science, then I went again to read Law. I will choke them.

“So if every public office holder, particularly the executive, can account for the money we have gotten, Nigeria will not be like this. People like the Speaker did not play the politics of the party. There was nothing that was not done to ensure that the money didn’t come to us.”

Gbajabiamila: No permanent enemies, friends in politics

Gbajabiamila was all praise for Wike’s confessions saying it was an irony that those he (Wike) sat with to plot against his (Gbajabiamila’s) emergence as Speaker were the same people who worked against him at the recent PDP presidential primary.

He said though politics remains a game of permanent interest, Wike’s new journey should be permanent.

He said: “I thank the governor and my friend for a confession that had been known to all; that you plotted against me. It is an irony of life and indeed very interesting, a  twist of fate that those you sat with to plot against me were the same people that sat together at your primary to plot against you.

“So, the plotting is not necessarily a new thing in politics. But what is constant is that in politics there are no permanent enemies and there are no permanent friends. What you have is permanent interest. And by God’s grace, this one that you have started, this journey that you have started, that you and I both know shall be permanent.

“Please, choke them. I was impressed when you were talking about flyovers and you stopped at number 12. It is very impressive. But if you come to Lagos you will be counting flyover one all the way to 1000. And that is a fact.”

On why he accepted Wike’s invitation, Gbajabiamila said: “My presence here is, among other things, a repudiation to those who believe that political differences justify vicious assaults on the humanity of others.

“I am here to tell them that even though Governor Wike and I belong to different political parties and come from different political cultures, we are united in our desire to see a peaceful and prosperous Nigeria.

“And we are joined in our determination to stand together against those who wish to destroy our country by practising politics that amounts to nothing more than a frenetic appeal to anger, fear and resentment.

“At every significant juncture of our nation’s history, this city of Port Harcourt and the people of Rivers State have played influential roles. As it was in the beginning, so it is now.

“It is providential that at this moment in time, Rivers is governed by His Excellency Governor Nyesom Wike, a tested administrator and politician per excellence, who practices politics of courage and convictions and has proven time and again his capacity to govern with vision and competence”.

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