As the election is less than 10 hours from now, the Peoples Democratic Party in Rivers State has said that voters in the state will determine the fate of the party’s presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, at the polls on Saturday.
The PDP spokesman in the state, Chief Ogbonna Nwuke, in a phone conversation with our correspondent on Friday, said the Rivers people were intelligent people and that they would make their choice at the polls.
This is as the governor of the state, Nyesom Wike, is still bent, till die minute, on not campaigning for the candidate of the party.
Speaking with our candidate on the fate of Atiku in the elections, Chief Nwuke said, “My thinking is that quite a lot of people here are politically enlightened, and they have been following developments in the past few months. Most (of them) feel completely agitated that the interest of the South was not protected by the party.
“Not many people here are pleased that the situation is the way it is that somebody from a section of the country is the presidential candidate and another person (Iyorchia Ayu) from the same section of the party is the chairman of the party.
“There have been conversations going on among the people. I believe that most of them will vote the candidate of their choice. It’s left to the people, the people are sufficiently enlightened.
“When it comes to the party’s candidate, they will vote the PDP.”
Nwuke said so much was at stake regarding the elections in the state, which included the interest of the state, and the interest of the South.
According to him, if the people’s interests at the polls turn out to be against the party’s candidate, then the party would learn a lesson for the future, “they would not make that kind of mistake.”
He said, “If the people vote Bola Tinubu or the presidential candidate of the Labour Party, Peter Obi, it will also mean they voted a southern candidate.”
However, the All Progressives Congress Chapter in the state, is upbeat about the chances of the party’s candidate, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu.
In a phone conversation with our correspondent late Friday, the Publicity Secretary of the party, Darlington Nwauju, said, “We’re prepared for the elections and we want to win.”
Also responding to questions on the chances of Tinubu in a state ruled by the PDP, the governorship candidate of the party, Tonye Cole, said power often changed hands. “Power is about to shift completely,” he said.
The PUNCH reports that Wike of Rivers State who is the leader of five aggrieved PDP governors known as G-5, including Seyi Makinde of Oyo State, Samuel Ortom of Benue State, Ifeanyi Ugwanyi of Enugu State and Okezie Ikpeazu of Abia State, have turned backs against Atiku over what they described as unequal representation in the hierarchy of the party’s leadership.
Amid this crisis, rather than supporting Atiku, Governor Ortom had declared his support for Obi of the Labour Party.
