Rivers State governor, Nyesom Ezenwo Wike, has mocked the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, for leading the party’s leaders on a protest march to the national headquarters of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) over the outcome of the February 25 presidential election.
Wike spoke on Monday at the commissioning of the Chokocho-Igbodo Road in Etche Local Government Area of the state.
Atiku Abubakar, presidential candidate of the PDP in the just-concluded February 25 elections, had contested the election that saw the All progressives Congress candidate, Bola Tinubu, emerging a winner of the presidential poll.
Atiku, leading Ifeanyi Okowa, Vice Presidential candidate; Dr. Iyorchia Ayu, PDP National Chairman; Aminu Tambuwal, Sokoto State Governor; Senator Dino Melaye and some PDP stalwarts to the INEC office, said the all black protest he and other members of the party embarked upon at the headquarters of the Independent National Electoral Commission, would continue for a long time.
Rivers State governor who led G-5 Governors in protesting that Presidential candidate and National Chairman of the party should not come from one zone said he warned the leadership of the PDP over its insistence that Northerners hold onto the presidential ticket and national chairmanship seat of the party at the same time.
He said: “While other people are demonstrating, I am commissioning projects. I have not gone to do demonstration; my own is to commission projects and make my people happy.”
Wike commended Nigerians for voting a Southern President in the just-concluded Presidential and National Assembly elections.
The governor said: “Section 7(3)(c) of the PDP constitution recognised zoning and rotational presidency but the leadership of the party contravened the provisions of the party’s regulations.
“Whether you voted for Labour, I have no problem with you. Whether you voted for APC, I have no problem with you. That is what we have argued for: that the North has had it for eight years. Therefore the South must be there for eight years.”
