A Former Governor of Cross River State, Donald Duke has revealed that the Nysom Wike Team agitating for the right things to be done in the main opposition party, the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, are more than five Governors, saying that they are actually six, with another quiet but very important governor.
Duke also said Nigeria should expect doom if a repeat of what happened in 2019, where the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) postponed an election four hours to voting.
Duke who is also a former Social Democratic Party Presidential candidate in 2019 said “If we have the kind of election we had in 2019 where four hours to voting, the election was postponed, the country will explode”
He said this when he appeared on an Arise Television political programme Prime Time monitored by Truth Live News on Monday, adding that prior to the day of the election, the INEC Chairman Prof Mahmood Yakubu had assured that the commission was ready for the election adding that all materials had been deployed.
He however said “four hours to voting he postponed the election and did not do the honourable thing of resigning”
Duke as a result of that action accused Mahmood of being partisan, and that he also thinks he was playing an APC script.
He warned, ” I hope he doesn’t try it this time because no amount of security apparatus would be able to hold the conflagration that we would go into”.
He said if the election in 2023 is not seen to be transparently free and fair then the country has a dooms day coming.
According to him, the failure of Nigeria is the failure of consequences noting that when you give people responsibilities they fail to act adequately.
Speaking on the issue ravaging the Peoples Democratic Party at the moment, Duke said the leadership of the party failed to do what is right when it ought to be done noting that it is what has led us to where we are as a country today.
He opined that people mix Rivers State Governors Nyesom Wike’s Substance from his style noting that maybe it is what draws attention from him. He noted that Wike’s style remains his (Wike) style.
He further said Governor Wike wants to work for the party but cannot because he feels the man in power is from the north which might possibly influence a lot of things in the party negatively.
He said: “What they don’t know is that people who are with us in the Wike Team is much more than they see, as a matter of fact, they say five governors, but let me say it here that we have more than five governors supporting our agitation for Ayu to go and the right things done, but whoever wishes to take these governors for a ride should wait for what will happen next”.
Duke however said unfortunately the country has not be able to go beyond ethnic cleavage noting that “there is adequate manpower in the country, you have the challenge as a leader to source out the best from each zone and that you cannot say this is the only zone that can produce leaders, we have to work on that”
He said the security sector and the NNPC is dominated by one section of people which he said is not suppose to be so.
He however advised the PDP to try and hold on to what they have.
He lamented that Peter Obi and Rabiu Kwankwaso left the PDP under the current National Chairman of the Party Iyorchia Ayu and he failed to stop them.
He further described the Labour Party as a fluke which do not have the wherewithal to win a national election because he said there are over 7000 polling units their manpower require.
He said what he is seeing is a mass resentment of the status quo where people assume that the head is rotten and must be gotten rid off
He said no one is talking about the gubernatorial election, Senatorial or the House of Representatives elections.
He said winning election is one thing, governance is another and therefore the challenge is that if any of them should win is how to put in place government.
He added that the only way they can survive it is when they put government in place which will take effect on all the parties. In other words they will win election and not be able to run a government.