The Governor of Rivers State, Nyesom Wike on Monday led three other governors to meet with two former Heads of State, Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida (IBB) and Abdulsalami Abubakar in Minna, Niger State.
The governors who accompanied him include Seyi Makinde of Oyo State, Okezie Ikpeazu of Abia and Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi of Enugu. The meeting lasted for one hour at the residence of General Babangida, and was part of Wike’s nationwide consultations ahead of the 2023 general elections.
POLITICS NIGERIA reported that on March 27, Wike said he has capacity to confront the All Progressives Congress (APC) and rescue the country.
“I have the capacity to face the evil called APC. I equally have the capacity to move this country forward. APC needs a person who has the capacity to tell them that enough is enough. In politics, I know that power is not freely given. You must be prepared to take it and I am prepared to take it. I therefore urge Benue delegates not to sell their votes. Give me your votes and together we will rescue Nigerians from APC,” he had said.
The Rivers State Governor is one of the southern politicians that have shown interest in the 2023 presidential race. It would be recalled that former governor of Anambra State, Peter Obi, spoke for the first time publicly about his intention to contest for president in 2023 on March 24, 2022.
Like the duo, Former Ekiti State Governor, Ayodele Fayose on March 31 unfolded his ambition to serve as the next president.
“May I also state clearly that I will be seeking the ticket of the PDP to contest the next presidential election,” he said in a statement in Lagos.
The developments have further strengthened the call by stakeholders that the opposition party should zone its ticket to south where its people have accused the northerners of marginalisation. This newspaper reported that while the APC seems to be handling the politics of zoning for the 2023 presidential race much better than the PDP, having zoned its presidential ticket to the south, the opposition are not taking such seriously.
Atiku Abubakar already declared interest for the sixth time and same has been witnessed with Aminu Tambuwal and Bukola Saraki. Amid all these, northern leaders are already seeking support for the consensus option rather than zoning the presidential ticket of the PDP to the South.
“We all know the various situations that exist in our country and the need for the PDP to provide a platform and in doing that, we realize that the interest of the country is more paramount to our own interests.
“As such, we have come together and agreed that we should work out a consensus where we don’t all just go to the field. We don’t want our energy to be focused on just trying to get to power, but on how to help make Nigeria better,” Saraki, one of those leading the consensus train said.
Additing to this, media mogul, Raymond Dokpesi, who is the leader of the technical committee, Atiku Abubakar presidential campaign, said he was confident of Atiku’s emergence regardless of what the PDP decides.
Before now, the argument is that no southeast person has shown interest within the PDP. Interestingly, many have spoken. The PDP will only find itself in the eye of the storm if it refused to zone its choice of presidential candidate to the South.
