I feel vindicated for not choosing Wike, Atiku says.

Former Vice President of Nigeria, Atiku Abubakar, has said he feels justified in his decision not to choose Nyesom Wike, the current Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), as his running mate during the 2023 presidential election.

CBI News reports that responding to recent criticisms from Wike, Atiku, through his media adviser Paul Ibe, accused the former Rivers State governor of betraying the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) after failing to secure both the party’s presidential ticket and the vice-presidential slot.

In an interview with Daily Sun on Tuesday night, Atiku’s camp insisted that Wike lacks the moral authority to speak about the former vice president.

“As things stand now, nobody will ever take him seriously. We don’t take Wike seriously,” Ibe said. “We will not be under the same room with someone like him who is sleeping and having a dagger behind him.”

He recalled Wike’s public pledge at the PDP primary convention to support whoever emerged as the party’s candidate but accused him of going back on that promise.

Ibe said: “What can you say about a man who publicly said at the Velodrome of the MKO Abiola Stadium, the venue of the convention where the PDP primaries were held a man who spoke to delegates and said to the whole world that anybody that emerged as the candidate of the party, he would work with the person?

“In tandem with his own commitment nobody compelled him, nobody forced him to make that public declaration we expected that he would have kept to his word. But he did not. What did he do? He went into bed with the APC and conscripted others to work with him against his own party.”

Atiku’s team described Wike’s conduct as unprecedented, especially for a sitting governor.

“What qualifies him to speak about Atiku Abubakar, knowing fully well that what he did in 2023 was unprecedented in the history of politics and political parties for a governor, a leader, to openly work against his party and brag about it?”

“Why? Because he failed to win the PDP presidential ticket and didn’t get the VP slot. Because of that, Wike worked with Tinubu’s APC to pull down the roof of the PDP. He did it in 2023, he is still doing it," he said.

CBI News reports that referring to Wike’s recent jabs at Atiku including claims that the former VP is “jumping from one party to another” and cannot secure the PDP’s 2027 ticket Atiku’s camp said the attacks only confirm that Wike was never a suitable choice for vice president.

“We have been vindicated for not choosing him as presidential running mate,” Ibe said.

“He doesn’t exhibit, he doesn’t manifest, he doesn’t carry himself in a way that suggests that he would have fitted into that [VP] office.”