The Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Minister, Nyesom Wike, has denied promising to deliver the major opposition party, PDP, into the hands of President Bola Tinubu as preparations are ongoing for the upcoming general elections in 2027.
Wike clarified during a media chat at his office in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital, on Monday, following an allegation by the Governor of Oyo State, that the FCT Minister was behind the current crisis bedevilling the Peoples Democratic Party, and the wave of defections by PDP governors, lawmakers, and others to the All Progressives Congress (APC).
Makinde had said he regretted supporting Tinubu at the 2023 presidential election. He said the decision did not produce the outcome he had hoped for.
Highlighting the issues behind his disagreement with Wike, Makinde said it began after the minister told Tinubu during a meeting that he would “hold PDP” for the president ahead of the 2027 election.
Makinde stated, “I was in a meeting with the president and Wike… and I’m saying this, you know, in an open chat. The president’s chief of staff was also in that meeting and a few others… and Wike said to the president that, well, Sir, I will hold PDP for you, you know, in 2027.
“I was in shock. So we got up, we got to the veranda, and I said, ‘Wik,e did we agree to this?’ I told him from that day that I would never be a part of this. Wike can support him, and that is within his right, but it is equally my right to decide who I will support and what role I will play in 2027.”
Makinde said he later raised the issue with a mutual friend, hoping Wike would reconsider his stance.
He said, “I confided in a mutual friend of ours after that meeting. And I kept thinking, okay, the president did not ask him to ‘do this for him’. He was the one who volunteered to do that.
“When I was telling our mutual friend, I said, look, maybe he was talking about an errand that the president never sent him. So, let’s engage him. Let’s see if he will back off. But he never did.”
However, while responding to the allegations by Makinde, Wike denied making such a promise to Tinubu, sayingthat the Oyo State Governor was “frustrated”.
“Seyi Makinde has never called me Wike. That was the first time I heard him call me that, and it is very unfortunate.
“First of all, you must ask what that meeting was all about, and would have led me to promise to hold down PDP for Tinubu? Why did Seyin Makinde not come up all this time to say to the party, that see what Wike is doing o? Why didn’t he tell everybody about the so-called meeting?
“And let me put the record straight, there was no such meeting between us. My humble self, the former governors of Benue State, Otom, Abia State, Ikpeazu, Enugu State, Ugwuanyi, and Seyi Makinde, we went to see the President after the election, to discuss certain things.
“While we were there, I called the Chief of Staff to remind us of what we had discussed. So, it is completely out of place for anybody to have said that in a meeting; I said to the President that I will hold PDP for you. That is very unfair. Very, very unfair.
“If you watch Seyi, you can see frustration. And this is a young man we have advised several times that politics is not like dealing with contractors. It has different rules. When did Seyi Makinde come into politics? There is nothing wrong with having an ambition, but it must be tailored according to the rules.”
According to Wike, Makinde “does not have the guts to tell us he wants to run for president.
“Let him say he has told anybody, then, we will know. We are not kids. There are things you can do, and you think that people don’t know. They know.”
Makinde, during the media chat at Government House, Ibadan, also said he had what it took to contest for the office of the president if he so desired.
