Governor Rotimi Akeredolu of Ondo State, Chairman of Southern Governors Forum, on Friday led Governor Kayode Fayemi of Ekiti State and Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu of Lagos State, southwest Nigeria, on a seeming political adventure to expand the support base of the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the 2023 general elections, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, into south-south Nigeria, making a hypothetical overtures to Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers State.
The APC governors from the southwest, on arrived at the personal residence of Governor Wike, held a closed-door meeting before departure. Former Governor Ayodele Fayose of Ekiti State was sighted as one of the APC governors’ delegates from the southwest that visited Wike in Port Harcourt.
An earlier report that Tinubu had a meeting with Wike in France had been debunked by Tinubu’s media aide.
Wike since losing the presidential ticket of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to former Vice President Atiku Abubakar at the national convention, and further losing the vice-presidential ticket to Governor Ifeanyi Okowa of Delta State has been the bride of several parties in the country, which leaders have been trooping into Rivers State to visit the governor. The visitors were widely perceived to be lobbying Wike to dump the PDP and defect to their party, considering the electoral value of Rivers State and influence of Governor Wike in the south-south, and parts of the southeast.