The Minister of Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nyesom Wike has listed reasons he believed may have restrained the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) from expelling him over his alleged anti-party activities.
Wike, a former governor of Rivers State, made the disclosure during a monitored television interview recently.
The minister, who dared the party to move against him if it had the courage, wondered how anybody could talk about expelling him with all he has done for the party and a large number of political office holders in the party he single-handedly installed.
“How can anybody talk about expelling me? A state that brought the governor; a state that produced three senators; a state that has 11 of the 13 House of Representatives’ members; someone that produced almost all the State House of Assembly lawmakers?” he queried.
Wike served as a minister of State in the Ministry of Education, and eight years as governor of Rivers State on the PDP platform.
The former governor, whose appointment as a minister has remained a controversial issue in the polity, also disclosed that a number of highly placed individuals in the PDP were only bidding their time in the umbrella association.
“These people are just waiting for the presidential panel to finish; you would know who PDP members actually are,” he said.
Alleging that many governors and other category of leaders in the PDP were secretly fraternising with President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, he said that many of such leaders nominated candidates for appointment into the All Progressive Congress (APC) government.
“I said PDP governors nominated people for appointments, both as board and commissioners. I challenge anybody who is the governor of PDP state, who never wrote a letter to this government for certain people to be appointed under this government to deny it. Has anybody come out to challenge me?
“Of course, let any governor come up to say you are telling lies I never wrote; I would photocopy the letter and tell the world,” he said.
When asked if he was not afraid that the PDP might move against him, he said: “Look, I have not seen that person; I should be the one that should call for the discipline of those people for violating the party’s constitution on rotation. Who dares that person that would say that? I want to dare anybody who would say that.
“We know men of character, I’m a man of character; I can tell you authoritatively what happened and not what the press said.”
He also said that he notified all those that needed to be carried along and got their buy-in before accepting the ministerial job from Tinubu.
Recall that Wike fell out with the leadership of the PDP after the party’s Presidential primary last year.
He vehemently opposed to the zoning of the slot to the North and wondered why Atiku Abubakar, a former vice president from the North, should fly the PDP presidential flag.
Angered by the outcome of the primary election, he elected to work against the party at the presidential election last February, choosing rather to work for Tinubu of the APC.
Many observers have wondered why the PDP has continued to tolerate a man whose activities may have injured the fortunes of the party.
Wike may have used the opportunity of his television interview to tell the public why it would seem that the PDP is helpless.
