Wike Distances Self from Suit Seeking to Disqualify Atiku
Blessing Ibunge in Port Harcourt
Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers State has disowned a suit seeking the disqualification of Atiku Abubakar as the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
Supporters of Wike had taken Atiku, Governor Aminu Tambuwal of Sokoto State and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to court over the conduct of the PDP presidential primary election which took place in May.
But Speaking in an interview with THISDAY yesterday, Wike said he did not authorise anyone to file a suit on his behalf.
He said, “I don’t know anything about the so-called suit. I did not ask anyone to file any suit for me.
“I don’t know the lawyers. Am I a kid to be filing a suit at this time? I had 14 days after the primary within which to have filed any suit. I didn’t do that then, is it two months after primary I will file a suit?
“Just yesterday they came up with the claim that I ordered my chief security officer to pull down the PDP flag in Government House. This is all false, it’s all propaganda. Some people are trying to use me to win the election. Please disregard all these lies.”
In the suit marked FHC/ABJ/CS/782/2022, Newgent Ekamon and other plaintiffs asked a federal High Court in Abuja to order INEC to remove Atiku from “its list of candidates in the 2023 presidential election”.
The plaintiffs asked the court to direct “the first respondent (PDP) to declare the second applicant (Wike), a presidential aspirant in the May 28 and May 29 primary as the winner of the aforesaid primary with a corresponding order directing the first respondent (PDP) to forward his name as the candidate to contest the presidential election in 2023.”
Also speaking on the issue during the inauguration of the new Rivers State House of Assembly Quarters in Port Harcourt yesterday, Wike declared: “Let me say and to let Nigerians know that people have called me through-out this morning saying all kinds of things; that I went to court against Atiku Abubakar.
“I want to say categorically if I have reason to go to court, I will go to court. But I did not go to court. I just want to say it for Nigerians to know. I have kept quiet and I am busy delivering dividends of democracy for my party to win elections in Rivers State. People are busy plotting how to win election, rather, our people are busy trying to see how they will lose election.
“If they lose election, nobody should call my name. I have told the candidate, ‘you will lose or win this election because of people around you.’ Anybody around me know too well that if I will be going to court, I will go to court within two weeks after the primaries. Because it is a pre-election matter and after two weeks you can’t go to court again.
“The legal office of the party called me and I told him that he knows that there is a mischief going but you know me very well, if I am going to court it is not kind of lawyers I would have used.
“But I want to tell the candidate, it is his group that are doing all these things. Let the world hear that there are the ones plotting these things thinking that they will spoil my name. Yesterday, they said that I removed all PDP flags in Government House.
“We are supposed to be talking how to win election it is not about these human seekers around him. They are not doing him any favour while they are trying to make sure for him not to win election, but if that is what they wish, I wish them good luck.”
Governor Wike thanked Gbajabiamila for the role he played to ensure the state received the Paris Club refund from the federal government, even when he plotted against him for Speaker position.
“Mr. Speaker, I did not invite you because you are an APC member, I invited you because of the role you played for Rivers State to get their money. And I said come and see what I have done with that money. I was one of the last states that federal government refunded money from Paris Club. Nobody wanted to give me because they say I am out-spoken, they say that I am fighting for PDP.
