By Damola Emmanuel
Outspoken Governor of Rivers State, Barrister Nyesom Wike, has exposed, and reacted to the roiling rumours of overtures by the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, to former President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, to join the party ahead of the 2023 general elections.
Don’t dare it! They will destroy you! That was the warning that Wike fired at the former President during an interview with BBC Pidgin service over the weekend, urging him (Jonathan) to stay in the main opposition party, Peoples Democratic Party, PDP.
“If I see the former President, I will tell him what I heard,” Wike said. “I will tell him, ‘Don’t go anywhere because these people want to destroy your reputation. They don’t like you; you should know.
“What APC is doing now is to bring reputable people from PDP, and when they bring them, they destroy them so that they won’t have anywhere to go again. That’s what the APC is doing.
“I respect the former President because he is a man of integrity but if I am to advise him, I will tell him, ‘Sir, don’t make that mistake. If you want to run for President, run under PDP. Nigerians cherish you more than this government. They have seen that all the things the (Buhari) government promised them are lies. So, please don’t join the APC for the sake of your reputation.’
“He (Jonathan) has the right to decide whatever he wants to do but like I said before, if my former President runs for President in APC, I won’t be able to vote for APC in the election because that would be anti-party but if he runs in PDP, I will work to ensure he wins the election.”
After three failed shots at the Presidency, then Candidate Muhammadu Buhari of the APC defeated incumbent President Goodluck Jonathan in the 2015 presidential poll. Jonathan endeared himself to Nigerians when he, despite stiff opposition from his party’s inner caucus, conceded defeat and congratulated then President-Elect Buhari. Since then, the two powerful men have been working together.
This was underscored by ex-President Jonathan’s appointment as President Buhari’s Special Envoy of the Economic Community of West African States, ECOWAS. The appointment makes Jonathan a frequent visitor to the nation’s tower of power, Aso Rock.
The 2015 Presidential election, held on the 28th March, 2015, was unique and historic in that it was the first time in Nigeria’s political history that an opposition candidate would defeat an incumbent president in an overwhelming manner.
However, as the debate over power-shift rages, and the Buhari Administration inches into its homeward stretch, the rumour mills have been agog with insinuations of the APC making overtures to Dr. Jonathan to team up with the party ahead of the 2023 polls. Some have even hinted that the former President was being wooed to throw his cap into the ring.
The rumours have gathered strength with the recent defections of some PDP bigwigs to the APC, recent visits by APC chieftains and open invitation thrown to the former President by the National Secretary, APC Caretaker and Extra-ordinary Convention Planning Committee, John Akpanudoedehe.
Akpanudoedehe has, recently, declared that Jonathan would be given an opportunity to contest the 2023 presidency on APC platform “if he chose to join the ruling party.”
But the outspoken Governor of Rivers State has warned the former president not to swallow the bait, saying it would destroy him (Jonathan) politically if he succumbs.
