I am still a PDP member, Wike insists

The Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Nyesom Wike maintains he is still a member of the main opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) despite threats of expulsion from some chieftains of the party.

Wike, the immediate past governor of Rivers State, fell out with the PDP hierarchy in the run-up to the 2023 presidential election. He had insisted the party maintain its internal power-sharing formula by zoning the presidential ticket to southern Nigeria. While he backed out from supporting Atiku Abubakar – from northern Nigeria – who won the PDP primary election, the former governor worked for the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), leading to the emergence of President Bola Tinubu.

Tinubu later appointed him as a minister, a move that triggered debates on whether Wike is still a member of the PDP. Despite the calls for his expulsion, the FCT minister says he is still a member of the PDP, doubling down on his support for Tinubu – the APC flagbearer for the 2023 election.

“I am a member of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP),” he said during a Friday media parley with selected journalists in Abuja. “Have you ever seen me change anything?”

Even though Wike insists he is a member of the PDP, the FCT minister has been absent from major meetings of the party and has not been seen campaigning for them in the recent off-cycle elections, he does not regret his action.

“The one I supported before, what happened? I have decided to take a break. As you see me now, everybody should carry their cross,” Wike maintained.

“I was in PDP and I did not hide it: I told them I was not going to support their presidential candidate. Is it that I spoke or acted in a way people did not understand?”

He maintains he is an advocate of the rule of law, saying his non-support of the party in the 2023 presidential election was the right step and thus moves for his suspension are uncalled for.

“Discipline me for what? That I did what? I am an advocate of the party’s constitution. Assuming we lost the governorship, will they be talking about Rivers as a PDP state?

“Now is the time for governance. Now is the time to do your assignment. The president has given me an assignment and I am busy carrying out my assignment,” the former governor said. “When the time for politics comes, we would know who is where and who is not where,” he said.