The publisher of Ovation magazine and a chieftain of the Peoples Democratic Party, Chief Dele Momodu, has accused the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Nyesom Wike, of being responsible for Peter Obi’s exit from the PDP ahead of the 2023 general election.
Obi, who eventually became the presidential candidate of the Labour Party, had previously been a member of the PDP before defecting in the lead-up to the polls.
Speaking during an interview on *Arise Television* on Wednesday, Momodu claimed that Wike’s actions and rhetoric were instrumental in pushing Obi out of the party.
He explained that before the 2023 elections, former Vice President Atiku Abubakar had proposed that the PDP should zone its presidential ticket to the South-East, a move intended to give the region a fair shot at producing the party’s candidate. However, according to Momodu, Wike, who hails from Rivers State in the South-South, disqualified himself from the consideration by distancing himself from the Igbo identity.
Momodu said, “It was the same Wike people complaining about north-south that brought the committee through our party primary open. That’s why I was able to buy a form. I bought a form because, at that time, Atiku had told them that if they ceded power to the southeast, then it would make sense to him, but if it would still be a rotation between just a few zones, he would not support it. He wanted them to cede power to the southeast. But because Wike had already disqualified himself by saying he’s not an Igbo man, he said he’s from south-south, he’s not interested in Igbo anything, so he succeeded in frustrating Peter Obi out of the party. So, the coast was clear for Nyesom Wike.”
The PDP stalwart further claimed that the issue of zoning was not initially a problem in the party until Wike and his allies began to weaponise it to drive a north-south agenda in the race for the PDP’s presidential ticket.
