The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) G-5 governors will not be taken seriously by the electorate, if they publicly support Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, the president-elect of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) in the general elections of 2023, Dr. Daniel Bwala, a spokesperson for the Atiku Abubakar Presidential Campaign Organization has said.
This is as a result of the PDP’s National Chairman, Iyorchia Ayu, refusing to step down after Atiku won the party’s presidential nomination, governors Nyesom Wike (Rivers), Seyi Makinde (Oyo), Okezie Ikpeazu (Abia), Samuel Ortom (Benue), and Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi of Enugu state, as well as some political heavyweights from the South.
They were alleged to have met with Tinubu in London last month. However, the outcome of the meeting remains unknown even though Wike promised to reveal the candidate they are backing this month.
Speaking in an interview with newsmen, Bwala expressed confidence that Atiku will win the election said given the negative things the governors have said about the APC in the past, nobody will listen to them if they ask the people to vote for Tinubu and his party in the presidential election.
According to him: “Look at it from the point of view of Atiku and the PDP. Atiku maintained a national political party. The movement for PDP is carried out by mostly people from the South, which consists of the Yoruba people, Igbo people, South-South and then, the North”.
“Only very few northerners are driving the Atiku campaign because it is a national agenda. PDP is a party that has national spread. It is a party that produced a Yoruba president, Fulani president and South-South president”.
“APC since its emergence has only produced a Fulani man. They accused him of empowering CPC members and now Asiwaju now wants to come and empower his ACN people. So, the APC is a party that is shared by just two people, Buhari and Asiwaju. The rest of the party members are nowhere to be found. So, we are not on the same level. Nobody will look at the APC and vote for them”.
“One of the challenges that they have right now is that if they go supporting Tinubu, is it not the APC that Rivers state governor, Nyesom Wike said was a cancer they will be supporting? Remember Wike said PDP has headache and APC has cancer”.
“Even Ortom of Benue said APC brought destruction to his own people and that was why he joined PDP. So, will their people now listen to them to vote for APC? If they support Tinubu, that means they are only deceiving their people and are not fighting for equity, justice and fairness”.