The Director of Strategic Communications for the Atiku/Okowa Presidential Campaign Council, Dele Momodu, said he would have expelled the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nyesom Wike, from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) if he had the power.
Speaking on Channels Television’s Political Paradigm programme on Tuesday, Momodu accused Wike of trying to destroy the party, saying, “I don’t have the power, if I had power I would have fired him (Wike) long ago.”
The PDP chieftain, however, said he does not fault the ministerial appointment of Wike by President Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC).
Asked why he would fire the former Rivers State governor from the party, Momodu replied, “Such and unruly person who wants to destroy our party? One individual cannot hold everybody to ransom. If we fought the military, we fought the military in this country, Tinubu was part of those who fought the military in this country, and then you will now allow a civilian dictatorship?”
Ahead of the 2023 elections, Wike and other four then governors that made up the G-5 in the PDP withdrew their support for the party’s presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar over disagreement concerning power sharing within PDP.
The ex-Rivers governor supported the eventual winner of the election, Tinubu, who rewarded him with an appointment as FCT Minister.
Some members of the PDP just like Momodu have been calling for Wike’s expulsion from the party but the minister in a recent appearance on Channels TV’s Politics Today dared the leadership of the party to suspend or discipline him.
“Who will discipline me? I should be the one calling for the discipline of these people who violated the party’s constitution, in the way that the party supported rotation.
“Who will suspend me? I want to dare anybody,” Wike said.
He said he informed PDP leadership before he took the ministerial offer of President Bola Tinubu of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).
Wike said he remained a PDP chieftain despite working for the APC government. “I want to support Asiwaju (Tinubu) to finish well,” he said.
He insisted that he owed no one an apology for supporting power shift to southern Nigeria.