The Governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Olajide Adediran also known as Jandor, has revealed his problem with Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers state.
Jandor said his problem with the Rivers helmsman started when he was vying to for the party’s ticket to contest next year’s governorship election in the state of Excellence as Lags is widely known.
The PDP governorship hopeful was reacting to Monday’s endorsement of Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu for the second term in office, by the Rivers state governor.
Wike during the COWLSO event in Lagos on Tuesday said no other party can defeat Sanwo-Olu in the 2023 governorship election. He said the governor’s performance made him stand above any other governorship candidate, adding that his opinion is bereft of party sentiments.
“If Sanwo-Olu was in my party (PDP) and he is not doing well, I wouldn’t come,” Mr Wike said. If you’re in my party and you are not doing well, you won’t see me. If you’re not in my party and you’re doing well, you will see me. And I will not forget to say that I’m in support of you. I don’t want to talk about the other one,” Wike said on Sanwo-Olu second term ambtion.
Governor Wike’s comment, it was learned, ruffled feathers in the PDP which is still trying to come out of the problem resulting from the emergence of Atiku Abubakar as its presidential candidate.
The Rivers governor has vowed not to support Atiku except the National Chairman of the PDP, Iyorcha Ayu resigns.
But speaking on a Channels Television progrmme on Wednesday, Jandor said his problem with Wike started during the run-up to his emergence as PDP governorship candidate.
According to him, the Rivers governor did not support his candidature and may have been shocked that he eventually emerged as the PDP candidate.
He explained that Wike told him that he was supporting a different candidate for the election, and should not count on his support.
“During my primary, he did not buy my form. He was supporting somebody else in Lagos because he needed structure to win (PDP presidential primary). I don’t have that structure,” Jandor said.
He stated further that, “They had done all the structures in the PDP before my coming and I said to him in the presence of governor Seyi Makinde that ‘your friend is not supporting me in Lagos’. I repeated it when I went to Port Harcourt.
“That was before the primary. He said he was supporting somebody else and I understood why he was supporting someone else because I didn’t have anything at that time.
“But today, I picked that ticket with all his might within the PDP, and I’m the candidate of the party today. I don’t think I have done anything wrong for him to bring such treatment to Lagos, and I see how APC was jumping up and down because of that.
“If for anything, that brought a lot of sympathy, because you will never expect a party man, a governor of a state in our party for that matter, a national leader, will come and do that for any reason at all.
“This governor Wike that came to Lagos saying somebody has performed, let me ask him how many times has this governor invited him to come to Lagos to commission a project or any governor at all, the way he (Wike) is commissioning up and down.
“For the four years of the governor, he has never commissioned one single project. In Ambode’s tenure, three years, we saw Abule Egba flyover, Ajah flyover, airport international road, and the bypass.
“This government — nothing to show for everything they have done. Yet, their budget in 2020, according to them, performed 88 percent; in 2021, performed 86 percent; and in 2022, for half of the year, it is on 77 percent — both revenue and expenditure.”
Meanwhile, the magazine learned that the PDP is still weighing options on how to respond to Governor Wike’s endorsement of Sanwo-Olu, an action an NWC member said is “tantamount to anti-party activity”.
The very reliable source in the party who spoke with the magazine on Thursday said the Party is being careful “because any spontaneous response” could further polarize the party, saying the “elders of the party will find a way to call Wike to order before he destroys the party”.
