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Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Ezenwo Wike, has said he was doubting the readiness of the All Progressives Congress (APC) to hand over power in 2023.
As such, he said whoever emerges presidential candidate of the PDP must be someone who would be ready to confront the governing party squarely.
Wike, who stated this yesterday in a live television programme monitored in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, noted that although everybody had the right to aspire to run for President on the platform of the PDP, he will not support any aspirant that just want to bear the title, former presidential candidate.
The governor said, “Everybody has the right to aspire to be the presidential candidate of our party. If you want to run for President under PDP, I will not support somebody who just want to bear the name as former presidential candidate. I won’t do that.
“I must see that you are prepared to confront the evil called APC because when you are fighting evil, you must be serious to fight evil. APC is a party that can do anything and can go to any length. So, you must be ready for this evil.
“I will not support an aspirant who already has who will be Chief of Staff or who will be this and that. You must show how prepared you are to win this election. You must get someone who is very serious to confront APC and not what prophets and marabouts told you.
“Whether you are bringing marabouts from Senegal or prophets from Israel; no, I am not going to do that. APC are not people you think will handover power. They will not agree; they will make sure it did not happen.”
He said the fact that the PDP national chairman emerged from the North does not in any way mean that the party has chosen where it’s presidential candidate will come from.
He continued: “People are assuming that that being the case, that is what will happen. That may be correct and that may not be correct.
“We will choose a candidate that is prepared to face the All Progressives Congress and their government. We are praying to God to help us, guide us to arrive at that choice. But that does not mean in arriving at this, there won’t be turbulence.
“There are two types of turbulence; the one that leads to crash and the one that you pass through and it does not lead to crash. Our own turbulence will not lead to crash because we will come out of it but APC’s turbulence will lead to crash.
“If I tell you in PDP we won’t go through turbulence, then I am not being fair. There will be serious disagreements but it is not the type of turbulence that we can’t come out of. The turbulence in APC is so severe that it will crash but our own turbulence is normal turbulence.”