A chieftain of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, in Ogun State, Segun Showunmi, has said that Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers State and his fellow members of the G5 governors have no power to stop the victory of the party’s presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, on February 25.
Showunmi said the G5 governors were being deceived by their supporters to think that they have control over the votes in their states.
Wike as well as governors Samuel Ortom of Benue, Seyi Makinde of Oyo, Okezie Ikpeazu of Abia and Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi of Enugu had all opposed the candidature of Atiku, saying they would not support him because the national chairman of the party, Iyorchia Ayu is also a northerner like Atiku.
The insistence of the G5 governors that Ayu must resign his position and the refusal of the national chairman to budge has torn the party apart as the governors distanced themselves from Atiku’s campaign.
But when condemning the act in Abeokuta during a workshop for party mobilisers and collation agents from all the 236 wards of Ogun, Showunmi insisted that Atiku would win the election with or without the support of the five governors.
According to him, the new electoral act has made it impossible for state governors to decide the result of an election in their states unlike in the past.
The governorship aspirant maintained that the party had endured Wike’s decision to foist Uche Secondus on the party as the national chairman of the party, saying “it is now the turn of Wike to accept the decision of the party.”
Showunmi stressed that it would be foolish of any governor to think that he has control of all the votes in his state, asking Wike and others to retrace their steps.
His words: “Any second-term governor who thinks that he has the power to control all the votes in his state is only deceiving himself. If you joke with the presidential election, doing any stupid deal with another party, you are risking the governorship election.
“People around Wike are just deceiving him, the crowd around him is already tilting out. Even if you give people money, they may not still vote for you. If the election is easy, why is Bola Tinubu not sitting down in Lagos and just issuing out instructions?”