Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Ezenwo Wike has debunked the reasons given by his Ebonyi State counterpart, Dave Umahi, for leaving the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) for the All Progressives Congress (APC), saying that the real reason was that Umahi was disenchanted because a former governor of Anambra State, Peter Obi, was chosen as the vice presidential candidate to Atiku Abubakar in the 2019 general election.
He advised Umahi not to allow his inordinate ambition of becoming the president of Nigeria destroy the political future of the South East region.
Wike, while admitting Umahi’s inalienable right to seek for the nation’s higher office, said he should be mindful that if not properly articulated and followed, the region might be doomed politically.
Umahi had given as his reason for defecting to the APC from PDP the perceived injustice suffered by the region in the hands of his former party. He had also said that his ambition was to actualize a Nigerian president of Igbo extraction.
Wike said in Port Harcourt by insisting that he left PDP in protest injustice the party meted to the South-Eastern region since 1999, Umahi has shown himself as an ingrate.
Wike said, “One reason why Gov. Umahi is unhappy with PDP, was because Peter Obi, was chosen to run the joint Presidential ticket with Alhaji Atiku Abubakar in 2019.
“When we had the 2018 convention that produced our Presidential Candidate then, the Waziri of Adamawa, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, as presidential candidate, he consulted widely, and came up with Peter Obi, to be his Vice, Umahi was livid because he wanted to produce or he wanted to be Vice President.
You don’t choose who would be the Vice-Presidential candidate of anybody. Umahi was livid. What disturbs me, why do you think that if anything comes to South-East it must be you. Why do you think so”?
“Umahi cannot talk of injustice when he practices injustice against the South East zone by single handily installing his two younger brothers: one as the Zonal Vice Chairman of PDP and the other as the Deputy State Chairman of the party.
“If he believes in equity and justice, will he be doing such? It is because he has planted these people that the State House of Assembly had such effrontery to give the National Working Committee (NWC) ultimatum to zone presidency to the East. Where does such thing happen? No other party has done any zoning. You can imagine the level of selfishness. ”
“It is not also true the claim by Umahi that he made PDP what it is in the South East zone as the only financier of all of its activities. Such claim Wike suggests that other governors of Anambra, Abia, and Enugu States are not anything to ensure the success of the party in the zone.
“I know it’s not correct. If not for Pius Ayim that impressed it on former Governor Elechi, would Umahi have become governor? So, he cannot say he is the one who has built PDP.
“The party made him what he is and if he denies it, it only tells you the kind of person he is. What is even his contribution at the national level of the party to support his claim? Where was he when people like Alex Ekwueme fought General Abacha and built the party. I detest such arrogance”, he said.
While dismissing the allegation against him by Umahi that he is a dictator who imposed who single-handedly imposed Uche Secondus as PDP National Chairman and his will on the party, Wike described it as spurious as evidence abound that Secondus was elected at the National Convention of the PDP.
