JUST IN: Wike Makes 2023 Presidential Ambition Public

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The Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike has declared his intention to run for the office of Nigerian president on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) during the 2023 general elections in the country.

Wike said that his decision to contest the election that determines President Muhammadu Buhari’s successor was basically to address the challenges confronting the nation under the All Progressives Congress (APC)-led federal government.

Wike made the declaration during a consultative meeting with stakeholders of the Benue chapter of the PDP at the Government House in Makurdi on Sunday, as well as on his official social media handles.

The governor, while soliciting for the stakeholders’ vote ahead of the party’s national delegates convention, argued that the southern region of Nigeria deserves rights to produce the next president.

“To remove APC from power, I’m the person who can tell them enough is enough. We must take this power and I’m ready to take it for PDP. God is with us that’s why APC keeps failing every day. I’m declaring it (presidential ambition) for the first time in Benue. I’m going to run for election,” he added.

Meanwhile, he cautioned stakeholders not to sell their votes but to give it to him who has the interest of the country at heart as against others that were only interested in becoming the president for the sake of wielding power.

Wike also accused those who once left the party and came back to seek the power of being the reason the party lost election in 2015, noting that those founding fathers who ran away from the party and still wanted to be recognised have lost their shares.

He said, “By the time you ran away, you sold your share as a founding father so you can no longer retain your position of founding fathers.

“I stood for this party. I work for this party since 1998. I have nowhere to run to and that’s why anything that happens to this party I take it personally. I have never relented.

“In 2015, those who ran away made us lose the election. Today, they are crying but some of us stood and said PDP will not die.
“Some people want to use Nigeria to buy back their personal business. They talk about private sector – let them mention the private business that had survived. Is it banks that your father had? Everybody is an employer of labour even in my house I have 50 people who feed on me. They should stop deceiving us”.

“I have performed as a governor and can carry my shoulders high anywhere. I have the capacity to face this evil government, give me the mandate. I will speak the truth to power and nothing but the truth. I have the capacity to move this country forward”, he added.