2023 PDP ticket: Wike visits Katsina twice in 4 days

ANDY ASEMOTA, Katsina

Four days after Rivers State Governor and presidential aspirant of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Nyesom Wike, stormed Katsina State capital, he returned to Katsina on Saturday to woo the party’s delegates.

Wike, who was at the PDP secretariat on Tuesday but could not strike a chord with the party’s delegates as thousands of PDP supporters turned up at the secretariat, however sent a message to the delegates that he would be back within a week.

Speaking during his meeting with the delegates Saturday, Wike said he declared his intention to contest the presidential ticket of PDP in 2023 general elections because Nigeria and Nigerians would not endure another four years of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), saying “if PDP does not win in 2023, we (the nation and her citizens) are in trouble.”

He expressed confidence of emerging successful in the party’s primary, even as he vowed to remain in the party and work with the PDP standard bearer because the primary concerns are unprecedented insecurity, hunger, poverty and unemployment.

His words: “We can’t endure another four years of APC; if PDP does not win in 2023, we are in trouble.”

Receiving Wike, the leader of Katsina PDP and former governor of the state, Ibrahim Shehu Shema, told him, “You have blazed the trail in all fairness, you have been consistent and you have been a fighter. You have what it takes to lead Nigeria. I do believe and share the same opinion you expressed in this hall.”

According to him, “the conversation of Nigeria of today should not be about which tribe, which religion, which region or which culture. The conversation should be about what the local populace are facing in terms of insecurity, poverty, hunger, illiteracy and unemployment.”

To Shema, “unless the conversation moves in this direction, leader cannot be serious; anybody who is not willing to take up this challenge and look at the populace and address their genuine concerns will only be interested in power for himself.”

Earlier, the immediate past National Secretary of PDP, Sen. Ibrahim Tsauri, described Wike as the strongest pillar of the party, saying Wike is the person who supported PDP to the level that nobody could comprehend.

“One thing I will like to tell people here is that I know whoever assisted PDP in the last four years, without reservation, without apology, I will say without Wike, PDP wouldn’t have been where it is today,” Tsauri declared.

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