Politics
Wike: Atiku banking on Presidency! *They want power to remain in the North *Mark’s ignoble role *Last minute plot to stop me
Even David Mark, former Senate President and the Chairman of the Convention Committee of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), was not spared on Friday, in the expose by Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike, as he recounted the role the party top echelon played in skewing the primaries that produced former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar as the presidential candidate in the 2023 election, at the event.
Wike, who riled up against the National Chairman of the party, Iyorchia Ayu and Atiku for engaging in a grand plot, accused Mark of also playing a major role in skewing the process to produce the outcome, which handed over the ticket to Atiku, saying the former Chairman of the National Assembly did not play the noble role befitting of the office he had held.
On a day the governor accused Ayu, of exploiting delegates and manipulating the presidential primary which saw Atiku Abubakar emerge as the party’s flagbearer for 2023, he also accused Atiku of reneging on his own assuring that the office of the National Chairman must revert to the South to ensure balance in the party, saying it depicted arrogance on his part.
Wike, on the same day, also revealed how Atiku was banking on the Presidency, the seat of power in Abuja, to support his ambition to succeed the incumbent, President Muhammadu Buhari, so that power would return to the North, saying it must have accounted for why the former VP did not see any reason to ensure fairness in the party in order to carry everyone along.
Hear him: “They’re are banking on the Presidency. No I did not say President Buhari, but some people in the Presidency who want power to return to the North. But they may not know the mind of the President. They don’t know what will happen on the last day. There are some people who are very close to me. They may come out and say this is what we’ll do and people will believe that it is from me. There may even be certain steps that will suggest that it is what I want. But until they hear from me, it may not be so. It is the same thing with Buhari. After all, did they not say that Buhari has endorsed a candidate. But eventually, did the President not say, no, everybody should go and canvass for votes and he was not backing anybody?”
Wike who spoke in a media chat on Friday, said of Ayu: “He was calling aspirants to withdraw for Atiku. I was there, Saraki and others were there. He manipulated the delegates. There was nothing Ayu did not do to ensure Wike didn’t emerge. When he was canvassing to become leader of the party, he not allow me rest, pleading to be given a chance to unite the PDP.
“It was to my dismay, that he got into office and began to do the opposite of all he had sworn to uphold within the party. When they started selling forms for the primaries, I reminded the National Chairman that they had set up a committee on zoning headed by the Governor of Enugu State. However, Ayu started selling forms without resolving the issue of zoning.
“So, cleverly, they now came up to say, ‘well, since people have already bought forms, there is no need to zone.’ I knew the move would cause problems but decided to go in for the campaign and gave it his all. We went for the primaries and we campaigned seriously. And they were shocked because if you look at the modus of our campaign, nobody was the DG. Nobody was anything, you never know… because we didn’t want to allow anybody to approach people to be moles.
“But the success of the campaign became a problem and a source of concerns for other candidates and as such, a series of meetings were held. A whole National Chairman threatened some of the presidential aspirants at that time that if Wike wins he was going to resign. In fact, he was calling aspirants to withdraw for Atiku Abubakar. Bala Mohammed (Bauchi Governor) is there. (Bukola) Saraki is there; Tambuwal is there.
“Meetings and meetings and meetings were called. You must withdraw, if not we will lose. Wike will win. Some of them said but the issue is not about Wike, we want to run. This is the national chairman of a party, who is supposed to be the chief umpire,” Wike narrated. This continued even until the day of the primaries. This was the reason the PDP’s primary election kicked-off “very very late”.
“The primary was to supposed start at 11am. We started at 5:30pm to 6pm. Who are the delegates? (They are from) 774 local government under where use to have 4,000 or 5,000 delegates. So, what was going on? Meetings upon meetings upon meetings. Putting pressure (on aspirants to) step down. Some retired generals were involved. Some of the meetings were held in their houses. But even in the committee of the convention, when we met in Benue Governor’s lodge with the National Working Committee, I raised it. I said, ’National Chairman, these people you are forwarding as chairmen of these committees are all known supporters of Atiku Abubakar.
“Ayu swore ‘oh, no’. I said look, ‘Just to let you know that if we don’t want this convention, we would have gone to court but we don’t want the party to be in crisis. Therefore, do the right thing so that at the end of the day all of us will be happy that the party has done a good convention and a winner has emerged without rancour.
“We are an opposition party, we are not in the ruling party. Therefore, we must conduct ourselves in such a way that there should not be internal crisis that may not be resolved before the general elections. There was nothing Ayu didn’t do; manipulation of delegates list… there was nothing he didn’t do. And, unfortunately, today, the numbers are not adding up. There is nothing they didn’t do to make sure that Wike did not emerge (as winner).
“So, we went to the convention and they came. You remember I spoke last based on alphabetical order. And when I came out to speak, of course, there was danger. The ovation was thunderous so it became a problem to them. To tell you, and I was highly disappointed by the former Senate President. Very experienced, very civil. All these things were set up to manipulate the system. Senator David Mark; he was the Chairman of the Convention planning committee. It has never happened in the history of elections.
“In fact, when you are speaking, whatever thing you want to do, it is at that point you will say it. But everybody has spoken, I have spoken. We have now sat down for them to commence voting, (that’s when) a whole Chairman of Convention Planning Committee said there was an announcement. It has never happened anywhere.
“The announcement we were thinking would be for security reasons, don’t pass this way or ‘there is something we just picked up; I don’t know if anybody has lost anything — your phone or whatever’. Such announcements is expected. But (the announcement was) to give back the microphone to Tambuwal to come again and speak after everybody has spoken to say ‘My brothers I want to withdraw’.
“Not even saying you want to withdraw, you now went ahead to say that his people should vote for Atiku Abubakar. At that point, if not for the love of the party we have, if we don’t love this party, that convention wouldn’t have held. There would have been crisis in that convention.”
Wike also accused Ayu of being very corrupt, when told that that was a weighty allegation and asked if he had evidence, he challenged Ayu to deny the allegation.
“Listen, Ayu has the opportunity to challenge me. I will name, I said I will name. I told you I was going to speak; am I not speaking today? Even some of the governors can tell you.
“Look, will he deny that he collected one billion from Lagos? Let him deny, I will tell you who gave him the money; not Lagos government. The money was given to him in Lagos. He met one of the presidential aspirants and told him that he is not sure these governors will want to sponsor the party.
“Let Ayu say no. I will even call some of the business men and how the money was arranged in Lagos. That money did not enter into the account of PDP. But we are not attacking Ayu on that basis. Look I am not any governor. I am a serious governor. I can’t just come here and begin to say anything. I say I challenge (him). Let him deny this.”
Source: tinyvoicengr.com
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A legal tussle is in the offing to determine the fate of the June 20 by-election to fill the vacancy in the Enugu North senatorial district at the National Assembly, following the decision of the Labour Party (LP) to challenge the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to exclude it from participating.
INEC had approved the participation of only three political parties for the exercise to fill the vacant seat left by Okey Ezea, who died last year, to the exclusion of scores of others including the LP under whose platform the former Senator won the seat in 2023.
Ken Asogwa, spokesman of the party, who gave the update on the next line of action, said LP had already approached the Federal High Court, Abuja, to challenge the decision on the ground of wrongful exclusion, saying that the party was deeply disturbed over INEC’s action, especially the reason it gave for it.
Asogwa, who conveyed the decision through a statement on Monday, wondered how its candidate would made to pay for the ineptitude of INEC itself, which failed to carry out its constitutional responsibility.
Stressing that the party complied with all statutory requirements and procedural guidelines, but was still denied access to upload the particulars of its candidate on INEC’s nomination portal, the statement, added: “Up until the close of the submission window on June 2, the party made several efforts, including formal protests and correspondences to the commission, seeking the resolution of the issue, but these efforts yielded no positive result
“The party fulfilled every legal and administrative obligation required under the Electoral Act and INEC’s extant regulations in the nomination of its candidate. Labour Party finds it difficult to understand the basis upon which it had been excluded from an election in which it had a legitimate and undeniable stake.
“It is both disturbing and deeply concerning that the head of Elections and Party Monitoring (EPM) in Enugu State reportedly justified his refusal to transmit the report of the Labour Party’s primary election on the ground that he was out of town on the day the exercise was conducted.
“This excuse is untenable and raises serious questions about the discharge of official responsibilities. Labour Party cannot be made to suffer the consequences of an official’s absence, negligence, incompetence or dereliction of duty.
“Electoral processes and the constitutional rights of political parties cannot be subjected to the convenience or personal circumstances of individual officers. If the officer was unavailable, it is incumbent upon him or INEC in Enugu to ensure that appropriate arrangements were made for the monitoring and reporting of the exercise.
“INEC should not be penalising a political party that duly complied with all statutory requirements. The Electoral Act only requires political parties to duly notify INEC of their primaries. The party complied fully with this statutory requirement. The legality and validity of the exercise cannot be vitiated by INEC’s absence, as neither the Electoral Act nor the commission’s regulation made its physical presence a mandatory condition for the conduct of a party primary election.”
Expressing confidence in Joash Amupitan, INEC Chairman to do the right thing, he however called on the commission investigate the actions taken by its staff members in Enugu and take decisive action against anyone found culpable.
His words: “Electoral institutions derive their legitimacy from public trust and every effort must be made to protect the integrity of the electoral process. It would amount to a grave injustice for Labour Party to be denied the opportunity of presenting a candidate in an election convened to fill a vacancy created by the death of one of its serving senators.
“Such an outcome would not only undermine the rights of the party and its supporters but it tends to diminish the democratic choices available to the people of Enugu North senatorial district in the coming by-election.
“As the party places its confidence in the impartiality and wisdom of the Nigerian judiciary, it urges all its members and supporters in Enugu North and across the country to remain calm while the matter is being determined by the courts.”
A conciliatory Atiku Abubakar, in magnanimity with victory, extended the olive branch to Rotimi Amaechi and Mohammed Hayatu-Deen, the pair he defeated on Wednesday night to clinch the ticket of the African Democratic Congress (ADC) for next year’s presidential election.
He appealed to both men never to abandon the party ahead of the election, scheduled for January 2027, but to close ranks to ensure victory for both party, Nigeria as a country and the people currently under the bondage of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).
Extending the olive branch shortly after being handed the party flag, officially declaring him as the candidate, he said: “I therefore appeal to all those who feel aggrieved to come back to our party and close ranks with the rest of us. In particular, I invite Chief Rotimi Anechi and Alhaji Muhammad Hayatu-Deen to join me in this fight to save our democracy and our country.
“As I said previously, there are no winners and no losers. Our people look up to us for leadership and I am ready to lead,” he said.
He added that he would work with other aspirants and stakeholders to build the party ahead of the general election.
“I shall work with you all to continue to build our party. I will campaign with you and if Nigeria’s leaders demand it, govern with you to build a country that works for all of us.”
The appeal is coming hours after both Amaechi, former Governor of Rivers State and former Minister of Transportation and Hayatu-Deen, former Chairman of the Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG), rejected the result, even before it was announced, citing what they described as manipulation of the voting process, with Hayatu-Deen saying he would not attend the announcement of the result.
Regardless, Atiku, Nigeria’s former Vice President between 1999 and 2007, said he truly humbled and excited to lead the party into the next elections, adding that he was particularly excited by the party’s demonstration of internal democracy despite the position of naysayers.
Hear him: “I must state at this juncture that this is not the time to celebrate. No one was defeated because we are one party and we all need to recognise the fierce urgency of the moment.
“Therefore, we have to unite, as we pledged before this process, to work to pull our country and our people out of the destructive grip of a corrupt, incompetent and polarising APC government.
“I thank the primary elections Committee for organising peaceful, free, fair and transparent primaries. I thank the various leadership organs of our party, the various stakeholders, and volunteers for their hard work and dedication and all our party members and supporters for their efforts, patience and conduct during the process.
“With the primaries behind us, the real hard work is about to begin. We have to prepare to campaign hard to win the next general elections in order to begin the difficult process of rescuing our country and its long-suffering people from this government.”
“I will not be attending the announcement of the ADC Presidential Election Results today. I am concerned by reports from across the country of widespread vote rigging, some of which I myself observed, and will therefore be taking advice on my next steps.”
These were the exact words of Mohammed Hayatu-Deen, one of the presidential aspirants of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), with which he cast a slur on the ongoing presidential primaries of the party, hinging his position on reports of fraud trailing the exercise.
Hayatu-Deen, a second timer in the search for the nation’s number one job, ran against Atiku Abubakar, Nigeria’s former Vice President and Rotimi Chibuike Amaechi, former Minister of Transportation.
In a statement on his assessment of the exercise which began on Monday, the renowned economist Chairman of the Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG), used his X platform to convey his dissatisfaction with the process.
The ADC which said the collation for the exercise would take place in Abuja had urged aspirants, party leaders, delegates, and members to conduct themselves peacefully and uphold party unity.
Bolaji Abdullahi, its spokesman, who described the exercise as a defining moment for both the ADC and Nigerians seeking a credible political alternative, maintained that it remained committed to internal democracy and a transparent leadership selection process.
“The ADC remains proud to stand today as the only truly democratic party in Nigeria because it is the only political party whose choice of presidential candidate is determined through open primaries,” he said adding that the conduct of aspirants and party members during the exercise would reflect the leadership culture the ADC seeks to promote.
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