Contrary to expectations, Wike says he won’t leave PDP

Since the PDP presidential primary in May, Wike has been at loggerheads with the presidential candidate of the party, Atiku Abubakar, and the National Chairman of the party, Iyorchia Ayu. 

Many believe the governor and his loyalists may dump the party ahead of the 2023 presidential elections given the crisis rocking the party, and his recent romance with the Labour Party, Peter Obi, and chieftains of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC). 

But Wike during a meeting with stakeholders of the party across the 319 wards of the state at the Banquet Hall of the Government House in Port Harcourt on Thursday, September 22, 2022, said he would not run away from the party. 

The governor, whose camp pulled out of the 2023 PDP campaign council on Wednesday, September 21, 2022, said he would remain in the party to fight for internal democracy.

He said retreating from a fight is a sign of weakness.

“One thing I have always told people is if anybody is thinking, doing anything to think that we will leave PDP, foul. We will do the fight in the party. We are not like them when in 2014 they walked out of Eagle Square. They’ve forgotten. They walked out and joined APC. Is it not correct?” Wike said.

“Did they remain to fight inside the party? But we remained; they ran away. Now, there is a fight in the party, we will not run. We will fight it in this party. Those who run away from fights are weak people. We will not. So, everybody should know this is the state where we are so that nobody tells you all kinds of stories,” Wike said. 

The governor also promised to tell his side of the story and reveal the truth in his planned media chat. 

He said, he would expose the ill characters of some persons who pride themselves as national leaders.