Ebonyi State governor, Dave Umahi, has declared that what the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Asiwaju Ahmed Bola Tinubu, needed from Rivers State is the people’s votes and not logistics support.
Governor Nyesom Ezenwo Wike had on Monday promised logistics support to the presidential candidate of the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP), Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, barely 48 hours after making the same promise to the presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP), Peter Obi.
Umahi spoke on Tuesday while inaugurating the Akpabu-Itu-Umudiogha-Egbeda Road in Emohua local government area of Rivers State.
Speaker during the inauguration, Governor Wike recounted how the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, rejected former President Goodluck Jonathan’s entreaties to support the latter’s re-election bid in 2015.
Wike stated that Jonathan travelled to the Dorchester Hotel in London in 2015 to meet Atiku but rather, the former former Vice President “embarrassed” the former President and told him to relinquish his ticket to him.
The governor said he was not asking Atiku to step down as the party’s presidential candidate for the 2023 elections, adding that, instead, Atiku should ensure the removal of Iyorchia Ayu as PDP national chairman for a southerner to take over in the spirit if inclusivity.
Wike said, “We forget history. In 2015 when Jonathan as a sitting President, I am not talking as a presidential candidate but as a sitting President, when he had won his primary, Jonathan went to London to Dorchester Hotel, he went to plead with Atiku Abubakar to come back to the party and support him.
“You know the condition he (Atiku) gave Jonathan? He should relinquish his ticket not to run as the President of Nigeria. That was the presidential candidate of a ruling party. He gave him a condition, telling him to relinquish that ticket.
“Today, we are not saying the presidential candidate should relinquish his ticket; we are not being selfish, we are saying since you are now the presidential candidate, let our people take chairmanship.”
