Staunch Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) leaders in Rivers and loyalists of Governor Nyesom Wike have told the party’s presidential candidate Atiku Abubakar, that he is on a path to losing again in 2023.
Wike’s foot soldiers and grassroots leaders fumed at the alleged ongoing attempt by Atiku and his think tanks to create a crisis in Rivers PDP by dividing the party and building a separate structure from that of the governor ahead of the election.
One of the pro-Atiku leaders and former two-time Senator, Lee Meeba, had taken a swipe at the governor in an interview he granted to a television station in Abuja accusing him of dictatorship.
He said Wike had vowed to stop them from campaigning for Atiku in the state without his expressed permission lamenting that the governor frustrated his bid to contest the governorship primary of the party.
Meeba, who was recently kicked out of the Governing Council of the Elechi Amadi Polytechnic as its Chairman by the Governor, said Wike did not allow him to employ anybody in the institution and refused to fund the polytechnic because of him.
He said the Governor was also furious that he and some PDP leaders met with Atiku recently and promised him that Rivers would vote a PDP candidate in 2023.
But Wike’s men said the move by Atiku to recruit some leaders they described as spent forces and Abuja-based politicians to fight the Governor showed he was not interested in genuine reconciliation.
The Chairman of Emohua Local Government Area and Wike’s staunch loyalist, Dr. Chidi Lloyd, took swipe at Lee Meeba describing him as a coward without electoral value.
He said it was cowardice elevated to the national level for Meeba, a two-time governor to claim that Wike ordered him not to run a governorship election.
The Nation
