A former Governor of Jigawa State, Sule Lamido on Wednesday said Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers State might be the next President of Nigeria after Atiku Abubakar.
Abubakar is the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party in the 2023 general election.
Lamido in an interview with Tracknews described Wike as a huge treasure for PDP and one of the best materials.
The PDP chieftain said Wike would be a natural heir to the presidency if the party wins in the 2023 presidential election.
Lamido said: “Wike is a huge treasure for the PDP and one of the best materials. If we win (in 2023), he is the natural heir to the throne because he has the quality, the aura, the charm, the charisma and the age. I have been saying this: PDP is a family. There was a primary election and there were expectations but some of them were not met. So, it is natural for one to react. I can understand that. Governor Wike is somebody who is very forceful, who has done so well as a governor of PDP in his own state and who has been very supportive of the PDP. But again, he was made by the PDP. He is somebody we must make sure we preserve and we must rescue him from his own anger.”
The former minister further stated that whatever support Wike gives PDP today is the party’s right.
He said, “Whatever support he is giving to PDP is PDP’s right because a son does not say ‘I am doing this for my father.’ The party that made him is like a father.”
According to Lamido, Wike has the right to be angry for not achieving his own personal interest or ambition.
The former Governor added, “He is right to be angry for having not achieved his own personal interest or ambition but again that is what leadership entails. He is a party man and the party is not his enemy. The party is his home, his own group, his own support and therefore whatever might have been his failure of him to achieve his interest, should not be taken too seriously at a personal level.
“Wike is now like a boiling pot. There is so much anger in him because people around him will not allow him to see clearly. People around him who he thinks are his own friends are his biggest enemies. It is a fact and he will see it later on and that is why they are putting more logs under the fire. By now they should be withdrawing all the logs under the fire, to allow the pot to cool down.”
Lamido further counselled Governor Wike to be wary of those around him, noting that none of them has the capacity to make him realize his ambition.
He noted, “There is no one single person in Nigeria today who can say I can run on the platform of PDP and win the election on his own, not even Atiku. It is the people of the PDP who will deliver such a person. Ask those around Wike, can they deliver their states to him? There are governors now using Wike but he is one of our best materials for the future.
“To me, we need to make sure that we assist him to calm down and stop him from spilling over with anger because the pot is literally messing up its body by this unnecessary heat.
“At the right time, he will see the wisdom in what I am saying because we are all former governors. We know what we were in office and we know what we are out of office.”
