ATIKU: PDP rejects Wike, forfeits only battleground state it controls

Today, the PDP will unveil its presidential candidate Atiku Abubakar’s running mate, and it will be a choice between two qualified characters: one a wildcard, the other a flat.

And either choice has consequences.

According to the Punch, the screening committee which the party national deputy chairman Umaru Damagun heads have scaled down the candidates to three: Governors Ifeanyi Okowa (Delta), Nyesom Wike (Rivers), and Emmanuel Udom (Akwa Ibom)

Damagun reportedly nominated Wike, but 13 of the committee of 17 voted for Okowa.

Wike vowed in the run-up to the primary he would never be a second-class citizen in his own country, and he maintained it even after losing the presidential primary to Atiku.

Along the line, the Rivers governor changed his mind, and put up a fight to play the second fiddle.

He was in Abuja for days lobbying for the slot in which Okowa already showed interest though he was no presidential aspirant.

While the supporters of the two within the party continue defending their choices, groups across the southeast and south-south are rooting for theirs, too.

For now, Okowa appears more favoured. The reason is clear, especially the way their personas contrast.

Wike remains a gatemouth that doesn’t even scruple when he boasts of his power politics. He has unseated many in the PDP, including a national chairman, Uche Secondus, and others within the Rivers chapter of the party. He’s at war with his Edo counterpart whom he nearly single-handedly installed when the former APC governor defected days into the guber primary. Wike probably stampeded fellow aspirant Peter Obi out of the PDP primary because the now-LP presidential candidate complained of an unfriendly south-south governor in the race.

Atiku will sure have a tough job working with a sidekick who has a mind of his own.

Which is why Okowa’s supporters are pitching their candidate as agreeable.

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“The decision of endorsing Okowa is to ensure that Atiku has a running mate who would support him in rescuing the country…,” Eziwomano Igboegwu, the co-ordinator of the Coalition of South-South and South-east Youth Forum, said in an interview with the Punch.

But Okowa being a soft touch in working with Atiku will happen only after the pair wins the 2023 presidential election, especially in the battleground states: Kano, Lagos, Rivers.

On that note, Wike’s supporters believe to do away with their candidate is to self-destruct, considering the grip the ruling APC already has on Kano and Lagos.

So Wike has a lever there. And if there are politicians that know how to work such, Wike stands out.

He will double down on playing his last joker that can earn him political relevance and keep him in power after his second-term tenure expires next year.