The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) says Nyesom Wike and the 5G will not dump the party for the All Progressives Congress (APC) as speculated.
Wike and his counterparts in Oyo, Benue, Abia and Enugu states, Seyi Makinde, Samuel Ortom, Okezie Ikpeazu and Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi, respectively, are bent on the removal of Iyorchia Ayu as the National Chairman on the ground that the PDP presidential candidate and party chairman should not come from the same regional bloc.
Recall also that the governors and other key stakeholders of the party, including former governors Donald Duke (Cross River), Jonah Jang (Plateau), and Olusegun Mimiko (Ondo) as well as a former Minister of Information, Prof Jerry Gana; a former PDP Board of Trustees Chairman, Chief Bode George, and a host of others resigned their membership of the presidential campaign council in a bid to prevail on Atiku to mount pressure on Ayu to resign.
However, the PDP has dismissed reports that Wike and the other governors had concluded plans to join the APC and its presidential candidate Bola Tinubu, explaining that talks between the two groups are ongoing.
The spokesman of the National Election Management Committee of the Presidential Campaign Council, Dino Melaye, ruled out Wike’s defection to any party even as he insisted that talks of reconciliation between the two camps were ongoing.
“We are still talking and he (Wike) is not defecting,” Melaye said.
Speaking in the same vein, the Director of Strategic Communication of the PDP Campaign Council, Chief Dele Momodu, said he would respond whenever the governor made his position clear on the matter.
“I can’t respond until he (Wike) does,” he added, even as he said he knew nothing about the rumoured plan of the governor to align forces with the APC presidential candidate.
Meanwhile, Wike had earlier told citizens of his state to vote for the PDP in the coming elections.
