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| Wike, Jonathan. |
The Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nyesom Wike, has said that former President Goodluck Jonathan has not informed him of any plan to contest in the 2027 presidential election.
Wike made this statement during a media chat with journalists in Abuja on Friday, while responding to questions about rumours suggesting that Jonathan was being persuaded to return to the presidential race.
“You’re the one telling me here. Jonathan has never told me; he has never called me one day that, look, I’m being pressured to run, what’s your thinking? If he calls me and asks me, I will be able to tell him my mind and what I feel,” Wike said.
He continued, “I will not because you people put something on the pages of the newspapers — just like you said they flew me out of the country — then, I now assume it’s correct.”
When asked about the emergence of former Minister of Special Duties and Intergovernmental Affairs, Kabiru Tanimu Turaki (SAN), as the consensus candidate for the position of National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Wike denied any knowledge of the development, saying he was not involved.
“I don’t know about Tanimu Turaki becoming chairman; maybe he becomes chairman for another faction — it’s not the PDP I know,” he said.
It was recently reported that Northern PDP stakeholders had endorsed Turaki as their consensus candidate ahead of the party’s national convention scheduled for November 15–16 in Ibadan, Oyo State.
Further speaking, Wike described the planned convention as illegal and hinted that he would not take part in it.
“How do you want me to attend a convention that I know by law that there is no convention?” he asked.
Meanwhile, reports indicate that former President Jonathan is under growing pressure to abandon any potential 2027 presidential ambition and instead support President Bola Tinubu’s re-election bid.
The pressure is said to be coming from prominent Niger Delta leaders, including former militant leader Chief Government Ekpemupolo, also known as Tompolo.
Some of Jonathan’s kinsmen in the Niger Delta have reportedly urged him to forgo any plans of returning to office and throw his support behind Tinubu’s second-term bid.
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