PDP panel recommends Wike as Atiku’s running mate

Baring last-minute change, Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers State will run on a joint ticket with former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar in the 2023 Presidential election.

Baring last-minute change, Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers State will run on a joint ticket with former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar in the 2023 Presidential election.

Daily Trust reliably gathered that the National Advisory Committee that the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) set up to look into the report of an earlier committee has recommended the Rivers governor.

An inside source said the committee saddled with the task of picking the party’s Vice Presidential Candidate has agreed to allow Wike, who came second in the primaries, to run with Atiku.

“Rivers state Governor Nyesom Wike has been chosen by the committee. He was overwhelmingly voted for by the committee. Majority of the members see him as the ideal person to be the running mate to Atiku.

“You saw his showing at the primaries. The party leaders believe in his capacity and they have chosen him.”

The committee was said to have voted on the three names recommended by the General Aliyu Gusau committee with the Rivers Governor pulling sixteen votes.

The three names the source said were Nyesom Wike (Rivers), Ifeanyi Okowa (Delta) and Udom Emmanuel (Akwa Ibom).

Those at the meeting which was chaired by the Deputy National Chairman, North, Ambassador Umaru Damagun, were Governors Samuel Ortom (Benue), Aminu Tambuwal (Sokoto), and Bala Mohammed (Bauchi).

Others are former governors Babangida Aliyu (Niger), Sule Lamido (Jigawa), Liyel Imoke (Cross Rivers) Olusegun Mimiko (Ondo) and the minority leader of the House of Representatives, Ndudi Elumelu, among others.

Addressing members of the committee just before going into a close door session, National Chairman of the Party, Dr Iyorchia Ayu, had urged the meeting to come up with a conclusion “between tomorrow and Friday.”

The chairman said the Candidate Atiku wrote to us as the administrative arm of the party on the choice of his running mate.

He said the various organs of the party are well represented in his committee, NWC, Governors Forum National Assembly, Former Governors, which all put forward their candidate.

Ayu stressed that, “our presidential candidate this time has decided to carry everybody along unlike 2019 when he didn’t consult widely in his choice of running mate.”