A chieftain of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Kassim Afegbua, has threatened to dump the main opposition party over the choice of Governor Ifeanyi Okowa of Delta State as the party’s vice presidential candidate.
Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, the PDP standard bearer had on Thursday, in Abuja, unveiled Governor Okowa as his running mate ahead of the 2023 presidential election.
Speaking during the unveiling ceremony, Atiku said his running mate must be able to speak his mind freely, adding that Gov. Okowa must be ready to work with him at all times.
But speaking on AriseTV Thursday afternoon, Afegbua, a former Commissioner in Edo state and ex-spokesman to the Atiku Campaign, said Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers State, deserves the nomination ahead of Okowa.
He described Atiku’s choice of Okowa as a reward for treachery, noting that the Delta governor had hosted a meeting of the Southern Governors’ Forum in Asaba last year where the governors demanded that power should return to South.
Afegbua threatened to dump the opposition PDP and support the standard bearer of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Bola Tinubu, in the 2023 presidential election.
This, he said, is to protest the alleged betrayal of the declaration by the Okowa-led Southern Governors’ Asaba meeting in supporting Atiku at the PDP primary and in accepting to be his running mate.
The ex-Edo commissioner stressed that he would not be joining the APC but would only be campaigning for the ruling party’s presidential candidate.
