Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nyesom Wike, has denied claims by the Oyo State Governor, Seyi Makinde, that he promised President Bola Tinubu to “hold” the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for him ahead of the 2027 presidential election.
Wike, who described the allegation as false and unfair, accused Makinde of being responsible for the party’s internal crisis, saying that Makinde’s ambition plunged the party into the ongoing internal crisis.
Speaking during a media chat last Tuesday, Makinde said he was present at a meeting attended by President Tinubu, Wike, the President’s Chief of Staff, and other top officials when Wike openly told the President that he would “hold the PDP” for him against the 2027 elections.
Makinde said the revelation left him “in shock” and marked the beginning of the deepening crisis within the opposition PDP.
“I was in a meeting with the President and Wike, and Wike said to the President, ‘Sir, I will hold PDP for you against 2027.’ I was in shock,” Makinde said.
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According to the Oyo governor, the comment was not discussed or agreed upon beforehand, prompting him to immediately confront Wike after the meeting.
“We got to the veranda, and I asked him, ‘Wike, did we agree to this?’ I don’t like talking about people, but I will talk about the real issue,” he stated.
Makinde stressed that while Wike has the constitutional right to support President Tinubu for a second term, others within the PDP also have the right to resist what he described as an attempt to weaken the opposition and push Nigeria towards a one-party state.
However, in a media chat on Monday, Wike questioned the basis of the claim that he made such a promise to the President, denying the said meeting.
“What was that meeting? What was the purpose of that meeting that would have made me tell Mr President that I will hold PDP for him?” he asked.
Wike also criticised Makinde for not earlier clarifying the issue within the party.
“Why did Seyi Makinde not come up all this while to tell the party what Wike is doing? That he was in a meeting and this is what Wike said?” Wike queried.
Insisting that the account being circulated was inaccurate, Wike said, “It is not correct. To put the record correct, there was no such meeting.”
He explained that the visit to President Tinubu involved several former and serving governors and was not the kind of meeting being portrayed.
“Rather, myself, the former governor of Benue state, Samuel Ortom, the former governor of Abia state, Okezie Ikpeazu, the former governor of Enugu State, Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi, and Seyi Makinde, went to see the President about certain things,” he said.
According to Wike, the visit was by appointment and informal in nature.
“While we were there, the chief of staff was there, and I was the one who told the chief of staff that we needed to remind the President of what we had discussed,” he stated.
He emphasised that no such commitment was made to the President.
“There was nothing like a meeting. We booked to go and see Mr President. It is completely out of place for anybody to say that in that meeting, I told Mr President that I will hold PDP for him. That is very unfair,” Wike said.
Turning to Makinde, Wike described his recent comments as a sign of frustration.
“You can see frustration in Seyi Makinde’s media chat. This is a young man we have advised severally. Politics is not like being a contractor with Shell; it has different rules,” he said.
He acknowledged that ambition is not wrong but must follow due process.
“When did Seyi Makinde come into politics? There is nothing wrong with having ambition, but your ambition must be tailored according to the rules,” Wike said.
Wike further alleged that Makinde harbours presidential ambitions but has not been forthright about them.
“Seyi Makinde doesn’t even have the guts to tell us that he wants to run for president. Let him say that he has told anybody. But we know. We are not kids,” he said.
Blaming Makinde for the PDP’s troubles, Wike stated, “There are things you can do, and you think that people don’t know, people know, they watch you, they follow what is going on.
“How did PDP enter this crisis? It is Seyi Makinde’s ambition. He went and alleged, with some people, what the financial secretary is said to have said.”
He also faulted the legal actions taken during the dispute, saying, “He made people go to the state high court in Enugu when he knew that the state high court had no jurisdiction over that matter.”
According to him, the matter was later resolved at the appellate level.
“They got the judgment. Samuel Anyanwu went to the Court of Appeal and won. We all agreed for the party to move on, convention would be coming, allow this to go on,” he said.
“We have only one year, and at the convention, we would make sure that those we don’t want to come back will not come back,” Wike added.
Source: Saharan Reporters
