According to Uloka Chibuike, the deputy director of media and publicity for the Atiku Abubakar Presidential Campaign Management Committee, reports claiming that the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) denied the Igbo the party’s presidential ticket for the 2023 election are false.
Speaking in Awka, Chibuike argued that the party’s governors from the South East were socializing with Rivers state governor Nyesom Wike rather than working hard to secure the presidential ticket.
He claimed that Igbo leaders in the party had followed Wike to Awka to mock Peter Obi, the PDP’s presidential candidate at the time, by claiming that he could not win the primaries.
He concluded that the zone was not prepared for the PDP ticket.
He said:
Even if the party had wanted to allow an Igbo man to fly the presidential ticket, whose support would the ticket enjoy when the two PDP governors we have in the South East were busy following Governor Nyesom Wike around like his house servants?
For them, it was Wike for President and not one of the Igbo aspirants. The records are still there. And how many votes did Igbo presidential aspirants garner at the primaries? They even followed Wike to Awka to mock Peter Obi that he cannot win the primaries, and owned up to it.
Chibuike insisted that there was no Igbo presidential aspirant who could have won the primaries and successfully challenged the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).
He alleged that Wike masterminded the weakness of the South East to challenge for the ticket.
In 2011 and 2015, we made this same mistake with Goodluck Jonathan and sold our rights to the Otuoke man by adopting him as Igbo-born, bestowing upon him the name Ebele Azikiwe, and threatening that he represents Igbo interests and that any attack on him will be a direct attack on the Igbo Nation. It’s unfortunate that we have yet to learn anything from that cowardice
If the few Igbo insist it was their turn to produce the president in PDP, we must remind them that in 2011 and 2015, we supported Jonathan as an Igbo son, and he won one term and lost the other on behalf of Ndi-Igbo. We robbed ourselves of our future and must take the blame, he said
The deputy director expressed disgust when he sees Igbos supporting Wike, adding that such people should not identify as ndi-Igbo.
He believes that if Wike was truly fighting for justice, he would have backed a candidate from the South East to win the PDP presidential nomination.
The only interest of the Igbo in Nigeria today should be the alliance that will give us power. If the North will give us that alliance, we’ll be willing to make any sacrifice to gain the alliance and produce a President, he concluded.
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