2023 PRESIDENCY: Wike Speaks On Contesting As Atiku’s Running Mate—Rivers State Governor Nyesom Wike says he has not accepted to be anyone’s running mate contrary to rumour.
Wike is rumoured to have accepted to be the running mate of former Vice President Atiku Abubakar who is seeking to get the presidential ticket of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) again after 2019.
However, speaking on Tuesday at the Government House in Port Harcourt during a PDP stakeholders’ meeting, Wike stated that at the appropriate time, members of the party in southern Nigeria will speak with one voice about their decision on the 2023 presidential election.
He said: “Forget about the propaganda and posters you’re seeing on social media. I have not said that I want to run for any office and even if I want to run, nobody can stop me.
“I have not discussed to be vice to anybody and nobody is vice to me. All those things are speculations and imaginations of those who are afraid of us.”
Wike advised PDP members who were struggling to be the party’s 2023 governorship candidate in Rivers to be calm, as it was too early to start campaigning for the position.
Wike added: “Those of you who are interested in the governorship of Rivers State should calm down first, it’s still early. Let INEC get done with the electoral amendment bill and let our party bring guidelines.
“I heard people are already scheming for positions when candidate have not emerged. Those of you waiting for my anointing, I am not a pastor.
“If you want anointing to become governor, you can go to your pastors. All my prayer is for God to direct us to have the right person to succeed us.
“We are coming towards the end of our administration, all we need is your constant prayers for God to keep the PDP united in the state. We want whoever that will take over from us to surpass what we have achieved.”
Wike further said during an interview on Channels Television’s Politics Today, that based on his records as minister as well as the governor of the oil-rich state, he does not think anyone is more qualified to become Nigeria’s president other than him.
“For somebody of my kind and record, a governor and a minister, I don’t even see anybody who will tell me that he is much more qualified than me, I don’t think that is possible,” he said.
