2023 Ambition: Wike clashes with Jonathan

Governor Nyesom Wike might no have accepted at face value what his godfather and former President Goodluck Jonathan said about his joining APC for the 2023 presidential race.

The Rivers governor said he will never support Jonathan— though both of them from the south-south, the region clamoring for the second leg of their own eight year-term.

“He knows I won’t support him in AP. I don’t do that kind of politics. It is party we are talking about and I don’t play ethnicity,” he told the BBC Pidgin Service n te weekend.

Many have been suspecting the dalliance of the former president with his successor President Muhammadu Buhari and the ruling APC,

But Jonathan recently clarified the matter. According to him, the news of his 2023 presidential ambition is a speculation.

Some skeptics think he’s politician, and hes not bound by his word.

Wike, probably, is among them.

He however cut Jonathan some slack—as his party man.

“If former President Goodluck Jonathan picks a ticket to run in my party, I will support him. I can’t do anti-party,” he said.

“But if he picks a ticket to run in APC, I won’t support him.”

Wike himself is said to be eyeing the PDP ticket, or, at worst, and a running mate to his Sokoto counterpart Aminu Tambuwal.

Tambuwal ran for the ticket in the PDP primary in 2019, and Wike was his staunchest supporter, in defiance of the party’s anointed, ex-V.P. Atiku Abubakar.

It may sound odd to those familiar with party politics–that an ex-president deserves some respect as a party leader.

But power blocs within the PDP have little regard for such, especially members of the PDP governors forum where Wike becomes increasingly assertive and bullish among other governors.