The Director of Research, Strategy and Documentation of the Peoples Democratic Party’s 2023 Presidential Candidate, Atiku Abubakar, Don Pedro Obaseki, has called for the expulsion of the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Nyesom Wike from the party.

Obaseki described Wike as the problem in the party and needed to be expelled.

He stated this in an interview with journalists in Abuja on Monday.

Obaseki said, “Wike was (/is) the problem of the PDP and to expel Wike now is a task that must be done by the PDP.”

“Wike is the one who created a cult within the party and called it the G-5. Against the will, constitution and structures of the party, he campaigned against the party.

“If anybody had done anything anti-party, it is Nyesom Wike. He has fought every known person within the party.

“If you remember, Bello Matawalle, former Governor of Zamfara State cited him as the reason for leaving the party. Dave Umahi cited him as the reason for leaving the party.

“Professor Ben Ayade cited him as the reason for leaving the party. Why is it that in the wake of Nyesom Wike, he has become the proverbial tortoise in every bad story?

“Wike has crossed the red line and now, he should be ready. He has all the money to fight us back because we are coming at him like a thousand bricks.

“He has unleashed the dogs of war and we will not sit back and watch him ride roughshod over the party and majority of Nigerians like he did for 8 years over the humility of the Rivers people. That can no longer suffice.”

The Director noted that the minister’s claim that he was fighting the party for flouting its own rules on zoning was cheap blackmail.

Obaseki added that Wike had an agenda and has been plotting his graph since 2021 and that the PDP never zoned its Presidential ticket to the South for the 2023 elections.

He said, “The party never said power should go to the South because it was the turn of the South in the PDP but it was the turn of the South in the APC.

“Since 1999, we have had six elections. The PDP had given four times out of that six to the South. Two times to Olusegun Obasanjo and two times to Goodluck Jonathan.

“But the party has given two out of six to the North. Once to Yar’ Adua and once to Atiku. I made a presentation to the governors in December 2021 in Asaba and Nyesom Wike did not agree because he wanted a situation where the primaries would be thrown open.

“He wasn’t campaigning but I was campaigning for the South-East and the North-East because they were the only zone that is yet to rule our country since January 15, 1966, outside the South-East that had six months hiatus with General Aguiyi Ironsi.

“Wike, knowing that he’s just less than 106km away from Otuoke in the home state of Jonathan had no moral right to want to run for the presidency when the immediate Southern President and the last President of the PDP was from the same former Rivers State with him. Wike was fighting a cause that was for himself in an attempt to prepare the ground for his eventual running.”

He noted that the battle to reclaim the party’s stolen mandate which has gone to the Supreme Court would be pursued to its logical conclusion because Nigerians deserve better.