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Akinwande Soji-Ojo
A member of the Peoples Democratic Party’s National Executive Committee (NEC), Timothy Osadolor, has said the immediate past governor of Rivers State, Nyesom Wike, is no longer a member of the party, given his conduct before, during and after the 2023 general elections.
Osadolor, who stated this while speaking to newsmen on Tuesday, noted that the leadership of the party had decided to isolate Wike and render him inconsequential in the affairs of PDP.
According to him, Wike’s recent public outings wherein he appeared to be leaning towards the All Progressives Congress (APC), gave him away as a man in perpetual craving for the spotlight at all times and regardless of the cost to his image as an opposition political leader.
“The PDP has ignored Wike because the man is no longer himself. There are more ways to deal with people apart from sanctioning them. You can keep someone in isolation. He (Wike) can boast that he is the one that stayed away but is it not better to stay away than come to party activities and nobody wants to associate with you? He has been given a cold treatment because he went to court to procure a judgement that says he cannot be suspended, but there is no judgement that says he cannot be avoided. That is what the PDP has been doing to him and technically, if Wike wants to say the truth, he will tell you that he is no longer a member of the PDP. No PDP leader or member behaves the way he does,” he said.
But in a swift reaction, a chieftain of the PDP and immediate past Commissioner for Information and Communications in Rivers State, Chris Finebone, said Wike remained a bonafide member of the opposition party.
Describing Osadolor’s comments as wishful thinking, Finebone said he does not have any power to speak for the party.
“We can’t identify who he represents, but I think it is wishful thinking. It is wishful thinking and the man who is said to have said that is inconsequential as far as we are concerned.
“And so, whatever he has said is of no effect. His Excellency, the former Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike, is 110 per cent a member of PDP and nothing has changed. And nothing can change it,” Finebone said.
On the accusation that Wike has been hobnobbing with APC, the former commissioner said it was petty and frivolous.