If the party continues to harbour Wike and condone his Machiavellian disposition, then it is expected that whatever laudable steps and decisions they are taking to tackle the challenges facing the party and reposition it will come to nought.
In recent weeks, the leadership of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, especially the governors, have been working assiduously to steer the party’s ship away from the iceberg and save it from sinking. To this end, they have announced a series of decisions aimed at addressing the challenges rocking the party. On Monday, the party, at its national executive Council meeting, announced that it will be zoning its ticket for the 2027 presidential election to the south. While this decision has been lauded by some observers, others have described it as a political gimmick to hoodwink certain actors outside the party’s fold rather than a convincing strategic decision to address the misstep of the past.
The PDP’s loss in the last presidential election has been largely attributed to its decision to adopt an open primary, which eventually produced a northerner, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, as its candidate, instead of zoning the ticket to the South, particularly the South-East. The emergence of Atiku as its candidate in 2023 fractured the party beyond measure and destabilised the already struggling party. While the party has moved to address some issues bedevilling with the recent zoning it announced, the main issue, the elephant in the room — the Nyesom Wike issue — is yet to be addressed.
After losing the presidential primary election to Atiku in 2022 and when it became obvious that he wouldn’t be picked as the vice presidential candidate, Wike revolted and turned against the party. He, alongside four other governors of the party, decided to work against the interest of the party and sabotaged Atiku’s presidential bid by working for President Bola Tinubu, who was an APC candidate at the time. Wike moved heaven and earth to make sure Tinubu won Rivers brazenly and violently, rigging the election in his favour, even when Peter Obi, the Labour Party candidate at the time, was adjudged to have won the state. After he was declared the winner of the election, Tinubu repaid Wike by appointing him as the minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja.
Since he was appointed as the FCT minister, everything Wike has done is to ingratiate himself more with Tinubu while further undermining and destabilising the APC. His actions have been geared towards helping Tinubu consolidate his power and making his re-election bid a foregone conclusion. While Wike has shown nothing but explicit disloyalty to the PDP, the party has continued to tolerate his excesses and obvious anti-party activities, which have led many to conclude that the party lacks the courage to suspend him. If the party continues to harbour Wike and condone his Machiavellian disposition, then it is expected that whatever laudable steps and decisions they are taking to tackle the challenges facing the party and reposition it will come to nought.
Now that the PDP has zoned its ticket to the south, will Wike withdraw his support for Tinubu and throw his weight behind his party for the 2027 election? While it’s unlikely that he will ditch Tinubu no matter what the PDP does, where does that then leave him with the PDP? He may not aggressively work against the interests of the party or sabotage it at the polls in 2027 like he did in 2023, but if his continued hobnobbing with Tinubu and repeated pledge to work for his re-election still put him on a collision course with the PDP. Whichever way one slices and dices it, the Wike issue is not one that the PDP must treat with the seriousness and decisiveness of an army General at a war front. The party’s leadership’s genial, diplomatic and conciliatory approach appears not to be working; it must now put its foot down and wield the big stick if it indeed wants to rid the party of the destructive agent, restore it to its glory days and mount a serious challenge at the presidential election in 2027.
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