*Obaseki regrets joining PDP late
Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers State said he wished all states in the Southsouth geo-political zone would be under the control of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
Speaking on Arise Television, he said as a man who believes in his party, the PDP, he wants his party to win the Edo governorship election in which the Edo state governor Godwin Obaseki of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), who recently defected to the PDP got the party’s ticket.
In the meantime, Obaseki said he regretted not joining the PDP long before he did.
Wike told the television crew that the party had resolved the disagreement that ensued in Edo State before last week’s governorship primary.
He said, “Sometimes there can be disagreements, but the ability to reconcile everybody is important. Particularly, as an opposition party, it is healthy to have division. There is no need to make people think that you don’t want them. I told Governor Obaseki so and anybody who knows me understands that I am not against anybody.
“After the primaries, everybody is very happy and Governor Obaseki is at home. If we have allowed what was going on then to continue, you will be alarmed at the level of division that will erupt, and it will be like what you see in APC.
“As a loyal party man of the Southsouth, I would want the whole region to belong to one political group, which is what it is likely to be. If APC is in a crisis, it’s not my business to help it.
“Remember, we also had our crisis under Ali Modu Sherrif and they were jubilant. As a politician, I am happy that we have taken one more state from them. I will continue to pray that they make more mistakes.”
Reflecting on his recent decision to dump APC, Obaseki said with his 13 years in the APC he had now realized that PDP stood for better values.
He spoke while collecting his certificate of return as the party’s gubernatorial candidate at the secretariat of the PDP, he said unlike the APC that denied him, the PDP cared so much for its members.
According to him, “It was only when we entered the house (PDP) that we realised that this was the house we should have been in the first instance.
“Because we now saw that the values in the house are the values we cherish and the values we lived for; values of justice, values of law and order, values of care for our people, putting the people first.
“These are the values we have always been in pursuit of, which we found in this new house in which we have been graciously accommodated.
“My deputy and I are very grateful to this great party. Like I said, you will never know what God has destined for you. In our hours of tribulation, when we were pushed out in the rains and storm from our political party, you came out with that huge umbrella to give us cover and shelter.”
