Monday, August 31, 2026

You dare not suspend me from PDP; Wike challenges party’s NEC 

The Rivers governor had been raising hell with the party’s top echelons since he lost the presidential ticket of the opposition party to former vice president Atiku Abubakar in May.

• September 23, 2022
Nyesom Wike,
Nyesom Wike

As the crisis rocking the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) deepens, the embattled Rivers governor, Nyesom Wike, has challenged the party’s leadership to dare suspend him. 

“They should call a National Executive Committee (NEC), meeting now and say ‘you are now suspended from the party’. Anything you see, you take. They know what I will do’,” Mr Wike spoke on Friday while fielding questions from journalists on a live television. 

The Rivers governor had been raising hell with the party’s top echelons since he lost the presidential ticket of the opposition party to former vice president Atiku Abubakar in May.

Mr Atiku’s decision to ignore Mr Wike to pick Delta governor Ifeanyi Okowa as his running-mate, further expanded the party’s fault lines.

Mr Wike and his supporters have since insisted that the party’s national chairman Iyorchia Ayu must resign for the emergence of a southern party chair, as a precondition for peace.

Speaking further during the interview, Mr Wike said he is still a card-carrying member of the opposition party and was not willing to leave, noting that the “injustice” in the PDP must be addressed. 

Mr Wike said those who currently run the party have no moral authority to take action against him.

“I beg them today, they should not waste time to suspend me,” Mr Wike added. 

“Who will suspend me, which party? No problem. I am not saying I am bigger than the party, but those who ran away from the party cannot suspend me from the party.”

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