Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers has said the defection of his Ebonyi counterpart David Umahi to the ruling APC was propelled by his “presidential bid.”

Mr. Wike dismissed Mr. Umahi’s explanation for leaving the opposition PDP — on whose platform he acquired the Ebonyi governorship tickets for two terms — as insulting to the Southeast.

“My friend, Umahi wants to be president,” Mr. Wike said in a statement issued Tuesday by his media aide Kelvin Ebiri. “But that does not mean that you have to blackmail your party, and tell lies to the people.”

“My reaction to Governor Umahi’s defection is not that he has no right to defect. But to say he is defecting because of injustice meted to the Southeast, that is insulting to the Southeast,” the Rivers governor added.

Mr. Umahi, a former state chairman of the PDP in Ebonyi, who had previously served as deputy governor before his emergence as governor for two terms, announced his defection to the APC at a press conference in Abakaliki yesterday.

“I offered this movement as a protest to injustice being done to the Southeast by the PDP. It is absurd that from 1999 going to 2023, the Southeast will never be considered to run for presidency under the PDP,” the governor said.

Mr. Umahi debunked claims that his defection was predicated on his speculated presidential ambition, while noting that the APC has yet to offer any position to him or the Southeast.

Peoples Gazette understands that Mr. Umahi’s defection could open the floodgates for other governors in the Southeast zone to jump ship to the ruling party.

Science and Technology minister Ogbonnaya Onu says the Buhari-led APC is working tirelessly to ensure that governors of all the five states of the Southeast are lured to the party before the 2023 general elections.