A former governor of Jigawa State, Sule Lamido, has said Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers State made it clear that he was not interested in becoming the vice-presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party in the 2023 general election.
He claimed that Wike, who contested the presidential primary of the PDP, said he was not using the primary to negotiate for a VP slot.
Lamido, who said he was a member of the committee that recommended three persons for presidential candidate of the PDP, Atiku Abubakar, however, said the former vice president was not obliged to the committee’s advice.
“I was on the panel. Now, the criteria the members of that committee might have used might have been confined within the walls of the PDP, but they chose somebody for Nigeria not for the PDP.
“If the whole thing is going to be centered on the PDP, by the time we have an in-house thing, we may lose the election, no problem, but then, whatever we do, we are going to bring it outside and tell Nigerians that this is what we are giving them, that was what we did.
“Therefore, Atiku is not obliged to pick our own recommendation. We gave him three names to choose from. In any case, (for) those who are ranting, Wike said he didn’t have the aspiration to run for vice president, and that he was running not for any negotiating purposes. He said so.
“He made it very clear. He said whatever he did was purely for that purpose and will not use his aspiration to negotiate for anything,” Lamido told PUNCH.
Wike had maintained silence since Atiku rejected him as his running mate, fuelling the suspicion that he might not support the former vice president in the general elections, having received the presidential candidate of the Labour Party, Peter Obi, and that of the New Nigeria Peoples Party, Senator Rabiu Kwankwaso.
But Lamido, who dismissed the suspicion, said though Wike was unhappy about the situation, people around him were crying more than the bereaved.
The former Jigawa governor said, “No, he’s angry, he’s just like a boiling pot. When the pot boils over, it will spill over and what will happen? It (the spill) will mess up the body of the pot.
“Now, for those who love Wike, people like me, we should make sure we remove the log from under the pot which is the fire. When that is done, the temperature of the pot will come down first.
“For people who think that they love Wike more than we do, beyond these emotional things, what can they do? I’ve been saying, can any of them, Fayose and Ortom, take him around Nigeria and support him to win the election, can they?
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