A former Jigawa State governor Sule Lamido has said Rivers State Governor Nyesom Wike, made it clear he was not interested in the vice-presidential slot in the Peoples Democratic Party for the 2023 election.
He claimed that Wike said he was not using the PDP presidential primary to negotiate for a VP slot.
Lamido, who said he was a member of the committee that recommended three persons for the PDP presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, however, said Atiku was not obliged to the committee’s advice.
Speaking with PUNCH, he said. “I was on the panel. Now, the criteria the members of that committee might have used might have been confined within the walls of the PDP, but they chose somebody for Nigeria not for the PDP.
“If the whole thing is going to be centered on the PDP, by the time we have an in-house thing, we may lose the election, no problem, but then, whatever we do, we are going to bring it outside and tell Nigerians that this is what we are giving them, that was what we did.
“Therefore, Atiku is not obliged to pick our own recommendation. We gave him three names to choose from. In any case, (for) those who are ranting, Wike said he didn’t have the aspiration to run for vice president, and that he was running not for any negotiating purposes. He said so.
“He made it very clear. He said whatever he did was purely for that purpose and will not use his aspiration to negotiate for anything.”
He dismissed the suspicion that Wike might not support the former vice president in the 2023 election.
He added that though Wike was unhappy about the situation, people around him were crying more than the bereaved.
Lamido said, “No, he’s angry, he’s just like a boiling pot. When the pot boils over, it will spill over and what will happen? It (the spill) will mess up the body of the pot.
“Now, for those who love Wike, people like me, we should make sure we remove the log from under the pot which is the fire. When that is done, the temperature of the pot will come down first.
“For people who think that they love Wike more than we do, beyond these emotional things, what can they do? I’ve been saying, can any of them, Fayose and Ortom, take him around Nigeria and support him to win the election, can they?
