Nyesom Wike, the governor of Rivers State has denied spiting Atiku Abubakar, the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), over former president Olusegun Obasanjo’s endorsement of Peter Obi, the presidential candidate of the Labour Party.
The governor said the comments he made about Obi’s endorsement by Obasanjo instead of Atiku were not to mock him but borne out of concern.
Wike made the comments at the flag off of a new road project in Obio Akpor Local Government Area of Rivers State, on Tuesday.
The G5 leader said he had initially “prayed” that Obasanjo remains quiet on his endorsement, knowing fully well anything contrary to Atiku will affect the PDP.
As he dismissed the mockery claims, that he stated that it is only those who love the PDP that worries about the Party.
He said: “I meant nothing bad. I’m only worried as a prominent PDP member. A man who loves PDP should be worried.
“I was not even mocking anybody. I was merely worried. My prayer was, let Obasanjo remain quiet and not say anything; that was my prayer but my prayer didn’t work.
“My prayer was that if this man makes any statement, it indicts us. Because he was President under the Peoples Democratic Party and he worked with our presidential candidate for eight years and the campaign of our presidential council is that our presidential candidate during the eight years did very well.
“When you now consider that having done so, then the principal will hand him over to Nigeria. But when the principal said it’s another person, it worried me.
“That was why I said something is fundamentally wrong and instead of them to say, what do you think is wrong, they are abusing me.”
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