Nyesom Wike, governor of Rivers state, says Atiku Abubakar, presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), asked former president Goodluck Jonathan not to run for a second term in 2015.
Wike alleged that Atiku had asked Jonathan to “relinquish” his presidential ticket ahead of the 2015 elections at a meeting in London.
The governor said Atiku worked against Jonathan’s victory for President Muhammadu Buhari’s emergence in 2015.
“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,” Wike began.
“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,” the governor alleged.
Wike urged Atiku to intervene in the crisis rocking the PDP by asking Iyorchia Ayu, the party’s national chairman, to resign his position.
Wike and four governors elected on the platform of the PDP have continued to demand Ayu’s resignation.
Other governors in Wike’s camp, popularly called the G-5 or Integrity Group, are Samuel Ortom (Benue), Okezie Ikpeazu (Abia), Seyi Makinde (Oyo) and Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi (Enugu).
The G-5 governors are insisting that one zone (the north) cannot produce both the presidential candidate and national chairman of the party.
