By Omeiza Ajayi
Minister of the Federal Capital Territory FCT, Nyesom Wike, has disclosed how he and his allies worked to ensure that the Peoples Democratic Party PDP flag bearer, Atiku Abubakar and Labour Party’s Peter Obi lost the 2023 presidential election to President Bola Tinubu, describing it as a deliberate political strategy targeted at Atiku, whom he identified as the man truly in control of the PDP chances that year.
Speaking on Wednesday during a media chat in Port Harcourt, Rivers State capital, monitored in Abuja, Wike said the strategy was built around denying Atiku the support of key PDP structures, including in the South East, in favour of Obi’s candidacy.
“Do you know what we did in 2023? Let me tell you now to shock you. We knew that the man who was controlling the election was Atiku,” he said. “Forget about all the noise about Obi. We gave it to him – take the South-East.”
The minister explained that the then Benue State Governor, Samuel Ortom, was central to the plan, given his own reservations about the choice of a Muslim-Muslim ticket.
“We knew his bias, we knew what was going to happen because of the Muslim-Muslim ticket,” Wike said. “We wanted to block Atiku, so we said, support Obi. It was a strategy. We wanted to defeat him, yes. And he took it.”
Wike said the plan effectively deprived Atiku of the South-South support that could have altered the outcome of the election, insisting the PDP’s internal calculations, not any external factor, determined the party’s defeat.
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