Gov Diri’s defection from PDP is an embarrassment —Wike

Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Nyesom Wike has described the defection of Bayelsa State governor, Douye Diri from the opposition People’s Democratic Party (PDP) as an “embarrassment”.

The minister who spoke during a media parley with journalists in Abuja on Friday said the Bayelsa governor’s defection was particularly embarrassing because the Governors Forum had appointed him as chair of the committee on zoning of its party offices ahead of its national convention this year.

He said, PDP “is a house that has died since”, referring to the lingering crisis tearing the main opposition party apart.

According to him, the only way for the PDP to survive, and not go into extinction, is for the stakeholders to do the right thing, even as he lamented lamented that the governors within the party were mostly responsible for the crisis in the party because they fail to carry others along in decision making processes.

“They say they are governors and have powers, I told them they’ll have a problem. The party carried itself with impunity”, he stated.

Although Wike has been mostly blamed by many for instigating the crisis within the PDP, he lamented that unlike a serious opposition party, the PDP was not interested in taking over power with governors flexing muscles.

“What is happening to pdp is self implosion”, he added, and maintained that he has no plans to leave the party.

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On accusations that he does not want the party’s convention to hold, Wike said, “When you take the wrong step you’ll achieve nothing. When you take a decision and sideline people, you’re likely to fail”, don’t blame me for everything happening in the party”.

He went back memory lane saying, “When Buhari was in power, the government did a lot for PDP to scatter, Modu Sheriff was being used to scatter PDP, but we stood firm. But now there’s not even any attempt by the present government, but you are killing it yourself.

“ It is not the duty of the ruling party to put the house of the opposition in order. Let us do the right thing”

He further lamented that in the quest to install a national chairman for the party, some northern elders adopted a former governor without carrying stakeholders along, an action he said will create more problem for the party.

Wike further stated that he had drawn attention to the actions of the governors and how their actions would bury the party, and insisted that the PDP national convention may not hold if the right things are not done.

“If a proper convention holds I’ll attend but not one that has a lot of irregularities”.

On speculations that former President Goodluck Jonathan may be considering running for the presidency again in 2027, Wike said “Jonathan has never told me one day that he’s being pressured to run. If he tells me personally, then I can tell him my mind”.

He stated that he has no plans to leave the pdp.

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