Wike’s Revelation: Political strategy or admission of election rigging?

Fresh comments by Federal Capital Territory Minister Nyesom Wike about the 2023 presidential election have raised serious questions about whether political interference can cross the line into Wike’s Revelation: Political strategy or admission of election rigging?

Wike, speaking on TVC’s Journalists’ Hangout on Monday, revealed how the then-G5 governors deliberately devised a strategy to prevent the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, from benefiting from the party’s strength in parts of the South-South.

According to Wike, the group decided that in states such as Edo and Cross River, where the PDP had considerable support, it would be better for Labour Party candidate Peter Obi to benefit from those votes than for Atiku.

“Our problem will be Atiku. Therefore, instead of Atiku to take it, let it go to the Labour Party. That was our strategy. Cross River, the same thing. That’s what we did,” Wike said.

But it was his account of what happened in Rivers State that has attracted particular attention.

Wike said the G5 deliberately prevented Obi from winning Rivers because of the political implications of an Obi victory.

“Obi will not win here because if he wins, he sends a signal somewhere, people may not understand it. And we stopped… we stopped it,” he said.

That admission raises a fundamental question: if political leaders deliberately set out to determine which candidate should receive the votes of a state—not through the voters’ choice, but through their own political calculations, does that not amount to election rigging in substance, even if the method was not the traditional stuffing of ballot boxes or alteration of result sheets?

An election is not simply about what is written on a result sheet. At its core, it is supposed to translate the freely expressed choices of eligible voters into an electoral outcome.

If Wike’s account is taken at face value, the G5 was not merely campaigning against Atiku. The group was making a calculated decision about where Obi should be allowed to gain votes and where he should be prevented from doing so, based on the political consequences for Atiku and the wider political interests of the group.

That distinction is important.

There is nothing inherently unlawful about politicians campaigning for a candidate, persuading voters or encouraging their supporters to vote strategically. But deliberately preventing voters from freely expressing their preferred choice, if that is what occurred, would raise a substantially different set of electoral and legal questions.

Wike’s comments do not, on their own, establish that ballot papers were falsified or that INEC officials manipulated the collation process. Nor do they establish the precise methods allegedly used to “stop” Obi in Rivers.

However, they provide a direct account from one of the principal political actors that the G5 intervened strategically in the electoral contest with the specific objective of influencing which candidate benefited from votes in particular states.

And that is where the bigger question emerges:

Can an election still genuinely represent the will of the people when powerful political actors openly acknowledge that they deliberately worked to redirect or suppress the electoral advantage of particular candidates for political reasons?

The issue is particularly significant in Rivers, where Obi has previously disputed the official presidential result. Wike’s latest comments are likely to renew scrutiny of the state’s 2023 presidential election and the political circumstances surrounding the result. Reports have previously documented allegations of manipulation, although Wike’s statement alone does not establish those allegations as fact.

The G5 consisted of Wike, Seyi Makinde, Samuel Ortom, Okezie Ikpeazu and Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi. The governors had opposed Atiku’s presidential candidacy and argued that the PDP’s presidential ticket should have been given to a southerner.

What Wike has now revealed is that their opposition did not end with refusing to support Atiku.

By his own account, they developed a strategy to ensure that Atiku did not get the benefit of the PDP’s strength in parts of the South-South, while Obi was deliberately allowed to gain in some areas and prevented from gaining in another.

The unanswered question is therefore no longer simply who won the 2023 election.

It is whether the political calculations of powerful individuals were allowed to interfere with the fundamental principle that the people, not political power brokers should determine the outcome of an election.