According to the Rivers State Presidential Campaign Council of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), the G5 group has disbanded and Governor Nyesom Wike is now on his own.
In a recent interview, the council’s spokesperson, Leloonu Nwibubasa, stated this.
According to Nwibubasa, there is no such thing as G5, and Wike is only playing mind games by insisting on the existence of any G5 or integrity group.
The G5, also known as the Integrity Group, is comprised of Governors Nyesom Wike (Rivers), Samuel Ortom (Benue), Okezie Ikpeazu (Abia), Seyi Makinde (Oyo), and Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi (Rivers) (Enugu).
The disgruntled governors have been at odds with the PDP national leadership and have threatened to boycott the party’s presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar unless Iyorchia Ayu resigns as National Chairman and is replaced by a southerner.
However, the Rivers State PDP presidential campaign spokesperson recently told Punch that the other governors have all abandoned Wike, leaving the Rivers Governor alone.
Nwibubasa insisted that the governors and other integrity group leaders are now back in the PDP fold and campaigning for Atiku.
In his words;
I have said this before and I will reiterate it; there is no G-5. What we have now is one G.
The G-5 as mentioned frequently by Governor Wike is a mind game. He wants to keep people around him believing that he has support from the so-called G-5 or Integrity Group.
You are aware that Jonah Jang (former Governor of Plateau State) was one of the leaders of the group. Today, Jonah Jang works with Atiku Abubakar. He has made it very open that Plateau will vote five over five.
As of today, his other colleague governors are campaigning in their states and they are saying people should vote for Atiku Abubakar.
In Abia or Enugu state, have you heard them campaigning for any other candidate apart from Atiku Abubakar? Go and find out. You will not even hear it in Benue State where Governor Samuel Ortom said “my preference would have been for the people to vote for Peter Obi if I were not a member of the PDP”.
When Wike keeps saying “I have the G-5,” it is a mind game. I want to say clearly to the people that there is no G-5. What we have is a one G.
Asked further if Atiku would not appease the G5 Governors to brighten his chances at the 2023 polls, Nwibubasa insisted that the G5 has crashed.
He however added that Atiku is reaching out to aggrieved persons within the party.
As I said, there is no Integrity Group. G-5 has collapsed, and Jonah Jang is back with us. So many other members of the earlier taunted G-5 and the Integrity Group are back in the mainstream. And so we don’t see a situation where a house that is not standing will now stand against the majority of the party and make us have issues with our chances of winning the election.
Again, talking about appeasement, we have a presidential candidate who is a unifier, and I can tell you that even though Atiku talks less, he is reaching out to people and he will continue to reach out even till the eve of the election, he submitted.
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