2023: Wike Frustrated Peter Obi Out Of PDP — Bwala

The spokesperson of the Presidential Campaign Council of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Daniel Bwala, has accused Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers State of frustrating the presidential candidate of the Labour Party, Peter Obi, out of the PDP.

Mr Obi had resigned his membership of the PDP days before the party’s presidential primary elections.

He was one of the leading presidential aspirants of the PDP alongside the former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar; former Senate President, Bukola Saraki; Sokoto State Governor, Aminu Tambuwal, and Mr Wike.

Speaking Wednesday on Arise TV Morning Show, Mr Bwala explained that before the party’s presidential primary in 2022, it was believed that “the presidency should be zoned to the South-East in the spirit of equity.”

However, with the emergence of Atiku as the party’s presidential candidate, some leaders of the party from the Southern region have accused their northern counterparts of flouting the unwritten rule of power rotation between the south and the northern regions.

Mr Obi said Mr Wike is the reason Mr Obi dumped the PDP for the LP where he eventually picked the party’s presidential ticket for the 2023 elections.

When asked to explain the reasons behind the claim, Mr Bwala said: “While the party was planning for the primaries, there was this internal agitation or advocacy for the power to shift to the South and people felt it should shift to the South-east

“The conversation started growing, it started reverberating to a point where Atiku said if the party was inclined to zoning, he believed that it should be zoned to the South East or North East because these are the zones that have not benefited and that if it was zoned to the South East, he was not going to contest.”

Mr Bwala then accused Mr Wike of being responsible for the removal of the then National Chairman of the party, Uche Secondus, and that he worked to ensure the emergence of a northerner as Mr Secondus’ successor.

He further said: “So during this time of advocacy and deliberation, Governor Wike ensured that the committee formed to deliberate on the structure of the party and the presidency zoning came out with the findings that support his ambition at the party’s chairmanship level.

“He was thinking that if the Chairman comes from the North it was natural the presidential candidate would come from the South. When it came to the presidential poll, he ensured that the outcome left the people’s poll because of the growing conversation that it should be zoned to the South-east when it was agreed that it would go to the South.

“When Obi saw that it was thrown open, he knew he couldn’t challenge gladiators in the party and so he left. Again Peter ought to have been the leader of the party in Anambra but he was frustrated by the command and control of Governor Wike. So that is the premise for saying that he frustrated the man out of the party.”