The Governor of Rivers State, Nyesom Wike, has said that the defection of Ebonyi state Governor, Dave Umahi, to the All Progressives Congress (APC), will spell doom for his political career since his chances of winning the APC party ticket for 2023 presidential election, won't be guaranteed.
Wike also said claims of injustice, which Umahi used as excuse to decamp to the APC, false and insulting to the South-East, and demanded that Umahi retracts the false claim.
The Rivers State Governor made the statement on Tuesday via his Special Adviser on Media, Kelvin Ebiri. He said Umahi quits the PDP because he wants to be president.
He stated that committed party members saw Umahi’s defection coming as he had been hobnobbing with the APC for a while.
Wike said ordinarily he would not have been perturbed by Umahi’s decision to defect to the APC but he felt offended by his attempt to justify his decision on the purported injustice meted on the South East by the PDP.
The Rivers State governor accused Umahi of being unfair to the PDP which gave him governorship ticket in 2015 against all odds and repeated same feat in 2019.
He noted that while Umahi has a right to move to the APC, but for him to attempt to blackmail the PDP and paint it in a bad light was mischievous and unacceptable.
“My friend, Umahi wants to be president. There is no problem about that. You have a right to be president. Nobody can stop you. You are educated. You have been a governor for two terms, so you are qualified to say I want to be president of Nigeria. But, that does not mean, that because you want to blackmail your party, and tell lies to the people you are leaving the party because of the injustice meted against the South-East, that is not correct.”
Wike demanded Umahi retracted the statement that the PDP has not been fair to the South-East, arguing that under the PDP, the South East has produced Senate Presidents; National Vice Chairman of the PDP and Secretary to the Federal Government.
He said it was erroneous for Umahi to accuse PDP of injustice, when he had unilaterally imposed his younger brother as South-East Zonal Vice Chairman of the PDP.
“In life, power is sweet, but conscience is important. It is most offensive and insulting for a man to lie against his party because of power.”
The governor said though APC has not yet told Nigerians where it will zone its presidential ticket, Umahi’s presumptuous move might be too hasty and would ruin him politically.
According to him, there was no guarantee that Umahi would secure the presidential ticket should the APC decide to zone its presidential ticket to the South-East where the party has no formidable base.
“My reaction to Governor Umahi’s defection is not that he has no right to defect, but to say he is defecting because of injustice meted to the South East that is insulting to the South East.”