Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers State has been described as a coward for failing to make real his threat of publicly declaring his choice of candidate for the 2023 presidential election and campaigning nationwide for such a candidate.
Governor Wike had late last year told the people of Rivers that he would by January make public his choice of presidential candidate, vowing to move from State to State campaigning for the candidate.
But January has passed and the Governor has yet to make his choice public.
Most recently, some of his aides came on social media, sharing the photo of the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Bola Tinubu with the caption ‘Is about time.’
But in a recent interview, Wike said that he never told the public the method by which he would make his preferred presidential candidate known.
Wike is one of the five aggrieved PDP governors known as the Integrity Group or G5, who have remained defiant in their opposition to the North producing both the party national chairman and the presidential candidate.
The group, on the grounds that there must be equity, fairness, and justice, has refused to campaign for Atiku in their various States.
Former Director-General of Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency, NIMASA, Dakuku Peterside, had on Tuesday, challenged the Rivers governor to name his candidate.
And in response, Wike fired back at the APC chieftain, saying he did not promise to make his declaration in front of the camera. Wike also said that he did not give a specific date in January when he will make his declaration.
And as Nigerians await the decision of the Governor and his colleagues, a chieftain of the APC, Chief Eze Chukwuemeka Eze has described the Governor as a coward and a confused man.
Eze said on Wednesday that by failing to name his preferred candidate in January, the Governor has succeeded exposing himself as lacking in vision and capacity to influence the outcome of the 2023 Presidential election
“Governor Nyesom Wike is a confused fellow. First, I earlier stated that Wike doesn’t know the type of politics that Atiku plays and in his ignorance, he thought that Atiku is among those he can undermine but sadly for him he has succeeded to finish his political career so far in the 2023 general elections,” Eze said.
“To me, Wike is a coward and has no Presidential Candidate to support; he thought that by his threats, Atiku would succumb to his ploys.
“By not naming his preferred candidate by now, he has succeeded in exposing himself.
“It is late for him to name or join anybody and if he decides to name any of the presidential candidates, such a candidate is doomed,” he added.
In a similar view, a former Nigerian lawmaker and social critic, Senator Shehu Sani, has said Wike-led G5 governors are playing hard to get.
Sani said their endorsement of any candidate for the presidential polls would soon become irrelevant as voters might have made up their minds about their preferred candidate.
However, all efforts made to reach out to the Rivers State Commissioner for Information, Chris Finebone, spokesman to the Governor, Kelvin Ebiri and Hon. Ogbonna Nwoke, Rivers State Presidential Campaign Council spokesman, proved abortive as none of the men answered several calls from our correspondent