The Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Plateau State, Chris Hassan, has urged party members not to crucify Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers State over his meeting with Bola Tinubu, presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in London.
POLITICS NIGERIA reports that the crisis in the PDP escalated after Atiku Abubakar, the party’s presidential flagbearer for the 2023 election, chose Ifeanyi Okowa, governor of Delta, as his running mate
Party stakeholders had expressed concerns that Atiku ignored Wike — who was said to have been preferred by a majority of the PDP’s National Working Committee (NWC) members as the candidate for the position.
Both men met weeks ago but they were not able to broker a truce.
In a chat with Punch in an interview published on Thursday, Hassan said it was wrong for people to brand Wike’s meeting with Tinubu as constituting anti-party when the Rivers governor had not said he was working to actualise the presidential ambition of the former Lagos governor.
Hassan, who spoke through the state Publicity Secretary of the PDP, John Akans, said: “I don’t get it when people read negative meaning any time Wike meets people as if he no longer has the right to meet with anybody.
“For me, Wike’s meeting with Tinubu in London does not amount to anti-party (activities) because he has not declared support for him. People should know he has the right to meet with anybody including those in the opposition.
“I believe that Wike knows what he is doing and it is for the good of the PDP. Yes, there are issues but he loves PDP and he has invested a lot in the party and I don’t believe he will abandon or work against the interest of the party he has laboured so much to build.”
