UPDATE: Muslim-Muslim ticket bad as retaining presidency in the north — Wike

Rivers State governor, Nyesom Wike has placed the Muslim-Muslim presidential ticket and the retention of the presidency in the north as two wrongs that should not be allowed.

In a statement issued by his spokesperson, Kelvin Ebiri, he said this on Sunday at the special dedication service for the Rivers state Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) 2023 election campaign rallies.

The event was held at the St. Paul’s Anglican Church in Port Harcourt, the Rivers capital.

While the All Progressives Congress (APC) has produced a Muslim-Muslim ticket for the presidency, the PDP presidential candidate is Atiku Abubakar, is a northerner like the incumbent president, Muhammadu Buhari

Wike said that it’s an insult to sideline the zoning of the presidency.

He stressed the importance of having a fair representation in the country’s political landscape.

He said, “You play on people’s intelligence. You say Nigeria is not ripe for Muslim-Muslim ticket, I agree. But Nigeria is ripe for presidency to remain in one zone? I mean, just look at the insult. You blow hot and cold,” he said.

“Most of you just sit there; you don’t ask yourselves questions. Somebody continues to sell these kind of cheap ideas. You don’t ask the person, ‘I agree with what you are saying but look at what we are saying here’.

“Your party wants the presidency to go to the same zone where President Muhammadu Buhari is coming from. Who is cheating who?

“It is not now that politics have come, you want to come and tell the church a different story for your own personal interest. We have to be careful so that the church is not destroyed, because, all of us, for example, we are Anglicans, I will not allow anybody, for his selfish interest to destroy the church of Nigeria. I will not allow that.”

Wike and four other state governors in the PDP are holding out for fairness in the running of the party, hence their insistence that the party’s national chairman, Iyorchia Ayu resigns.