Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike, has urged former President Goodluck Jonathan to remain in the Peoples Democratic Party and not join the All Progressives Congress.
According to the governor, the PDP is a better political platform for the ex-President to run for the 2023 Presidency if he chooses to.
Wike warned Jonathan not to be enticed by moves by the APC to lure reputable members of the PDP, adding that the ruling party offers nothing but destruction.
He spoke in an interview aired on Friday on BBC News Pidgin monitored by The PUNCH.
Wike said, “If I see the former President, I will tell him what I heard. 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.”
Jonathan, 63, – was Nigeria’s Vice-President between 2007 and 2010. The former Bayelsa State governor assumed position as the President in 2010 after the death of then-President Umaru Yar’adua, a two-term governor of Katsina State.
Jonathan subsequently contested the 2011 presidential election and won but lost his reelection in 2015 to Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), a former military head of state between 1983 and 1985.
Though out of Aso Rock, Jonathan has been seen working closely with the incumbent in his role as Special Envoy of the Economic Community of West African States.
With the 2023 elections fast approaching and the clamour for power shift to the South, Jonathan, who has the legal right to one more term as Nigeria’s President as the constitution permits all eligible Nigerians to be in office for two terms of eight years, has been receiving entreaties from the APC.
Many APC chieftains have visited him in recent times, raising the stakes in permutations for the 2023 general elections.
Of late, with the wave of defections swinging in the direction of the ruling party, the National Secretary, APC Caretaker, and Extra-ordinary Convention Planning Committee, John Akpanudoedehe, said Jonathan would be given an opportunity to contest the 2023 presidency on APC platform if he chose to join the ruling party.
However, the former President has not declared any intention to contest in the forthcoming election.
It was earlier reported that the Northern Elders Forum said that it regretted that it got rid of Jonathan in the 2015 elections to vote in Buhari, from Katsina State, North-West Nigeria.
NEF Director of Publicity and Advocacy, Dr. Hakeem Baba-Ahmed, had said, “Is there any Nigerian who is not disappointed in President Buhari including diehard APC people? Is there anybody who would not tell you he wished President Buhari had done much better?
“We raised huge expectations, we told people, ‘Get rid of Jonathan, put Buhari there, he would fix corruption, he would fix insecurity, he would fix the economy’ (but) look at where we are now.
“How can anybody say they are happy with the record of President Buhari, even the people very close to him would tell you that they wished he could have done much better and he could have done much better and he hasn’t.”
