Your men behind purported legal suit, not me – Wike tells Atiku

Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Ezenwo Wike, Friday dismissed the trending story that he dragged the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar and Governor Aminu Tambuwal of Sokoto State to court as untrue.

Wike rather said it was Atiku’s political minders who planned and planted the purported story of a legal action in the media only to discredit him.

The governor made this refutation at the inauguration of the Rivers State House of Assembly Quarters performed by the Speaker, House of Representatives, Rt. Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila in Port Harcourt, state capital.

In his words, “People have called me throughout this morning and said all kinds of things that I went to court against Alhaji Atiku Abubakar. I want to say categorically, if I have a reason to go to court, I will go to court, but I didn’t go to court.

“Yesterday too, they said I removed all PDP flags at Rivers State Government House.

“But I just have to say these things for Nigerians to know that I have kept quiet, and I am busy delivering dividends of democracy for my party to win election in Rivers State.

“But I want to tell the candidate, it is the candidate’s group that are doing all these things. Let the world hear, they are the ones plotting all these things, thinking that they will spoil my name, you cannot.”

Wike even explained that if he had wanted legal action against the outcome of the PDP presidential primary, it would have been prosecuted within two weeks after the primary, when such pre-election matters could be entertained.

“I didn’t go to court. I have no reason to go to court. But those of you who are plotting and saying that I went to court instead, for you to have come out now to say Wike went to court, I say shame on you.

“Shame will be on all of you. I have told the candidate, you will win or lose this election because of the people around you. Anybody who knows me knows too well that if I was going to court, I would have gone to court within two weeks after the primary because it is a pre-election matter and after two weeks, you can’t go to court.

“The legal adviser of the party called me and I told him that he knows that there is mischief going on. But he knows me very well, if I’m going to court, it is not those kinds of lawyers that I would have used and I don’t even know the lawyers.”

However, the governor also noted that the bigger challenge ahead of the PDP should be how to win the 2023 general elections.

“You’re supposed to be talking about how you will win the election. All these rent seekers around him are not doing him any favour.

“Rather they are trying to make him not win the election. But if that is what they wished, I wish them good luck.

“You see that I am not talking. I am doing my work, so leave me to do my work. Those concocting ideas every day, social media cannot make you win any election.

“Election is about the people and by the people. Let those in Abuja with you (Atiku), tell them to go home and campaign for you to win election. Leave Wike alone, enough is enough.”

Besides, Wike recalled that during the 2019 general elections, the same people claiming to love the PDP more now in South-South, sabotaged the party’s winning chances in the region.

He also lamented that instead of some PDP governors loyal to Atiku to strategize on how to win the 2023 elections, they are busy joining other stalwarts in wasting the time plotting accusations.