Victor EzejaBarely 60 days to Nigeria’s 2023 presidential election, five governors of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), known as the G5, have concluded plans to endorse the Labour Party presidential candidate, Mr. Peter Obi.
The five governors which include Nyesom Wike of Rivers State, Okezie Ikpeazu (Abia State), Samuel Ortom (Benue), Seyi Makinde (Oyo) and Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi (Enugu), travelled to London on Monday for a strategic meeting. Top of the agenda according to a reliable source is to decide who to support in the 2023 presidential election.
It would be recalled that Obi with former President Olusegun Obasanjo, ex-governor of Cross River State, Donald Duke, and four of the G5 governors met in London last August.
The G5 group led by Wike has in the past few months openly declined support for the PDP presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, following the refusal of the party’s leadership to remove the national chairman, Senator Iyorchia Ayu. The situation had brewed the crisis currently rocking the party as the general elections approach.
The governors are citing injustice, saying that it was agreed that if the presidential candidate of the party emerged from the North, the national chairmanship position should go to the South; but Ayu who is from the North refused to relinquish power.
The G5 recently mobilized other party leaders, including Chief Bode George, Prof Jerry Gana, among others. to form the ‘Integrity Group’ against Atiku.
Wike had last week Thursday while commissioning Rumuokwurusi-Elimgbu Flyover in Rumuokwurusi town in Obio-Akpor in Rivers, said he would in January, reveal the presidential candidate he would support in the 2023 general elections.
Wike, at the event, said that, with the situation of the country, Nigerians need a reliable candidate they can trust to deliver the needed national transformation.
Reportedly, the G5 group may have settled for Peter Obi.
A source said the coming on board of other leaders of the party like George, Gana, former governor of Ondo State, Dr. Olusegun Mimiko, former governor of Cross River State, Mr. Donald Duke, among others, contributed a lot to that decision.
Meanwhile, Benue Governor, Ortom, had on Sunday while receiving Obi, who was on a courtesy visit to the state, urged Nigerians to vote for the LP presidential candidate. According to him, Obi has the capacity to deliver Nigeria from its current challenges.
Obi had gone to spend his Christmas with Internally Displaced Persons (PWDs) in the State.
Ortom said: “Several presidential candidates have come here, and none of them has chosen to visit those IDPs camps and look at their plight to see how they are doing and give them hope that when they win, they will bring them succour, help, and hope.
“For you to have chosen to visit the IDPs on a Christmas day that you should be celebrating with your family, for me as a Christian, I say God will bless you and your aspirations. My prayer is that God will bless your aspiration to be the president of this country.
“Because I have seen capacity, faith, and hope, and I have seen someone who can bring the required equity, justice, and fairness that I have been pursuing since I became governor in 2015.”
He also disclosed that if he was not in the PDP, he would have canvassed and voted for Peter Obi in the next year’s election.
“If I were not in PDP, I would have been following you all over the place to canvass and vote for you.
“But, because I’m in PDP, I’m telling Nigerians that this man can help deliver this country from its challenges,” Ortom said.
Victor Ezeja is a passionate journalist with six years of experience writing on economy, politics and energy. He holds a Masters degree in Mass Communication.
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