By Our Reporter
Lere Olayinka, media aide to the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nyesom Wike, has faulted the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for its recent decision to zone the 2027 presidential ticket to the South, saying the move has come too late to make any significant impact.
“Now, that the party has realised its mistake of not listening to Wike and the G-5 in 2022, and have chosen to do what they said, three years after, have they not been vindicated now?” Olayinka had asked in his reaction to the party’s decision.
Appearing on Channels Television on Wednesday, Olayinka argued that the PDP ignored wise counsel from Wike and other aggrieved members before the 2023 general elections, a mistake that he believes worsened the party’s crisis.
“It is too late because we had the chance of doing the right thing three years ago that we did not do,” he said.
“For instance, if we had agreed with him (Wike), probably the party wouldn’t be where it is today. Head is off already, we are crying. What we should have done three years ago, we did not do.”
The PDP had resolved to zone its ticket southward, a demand that Wike and his G-5 allies had championed in 2022. At the time, they insisted that justice required the party to present a Southern candidate after former President Muhammadu Buhari, a Northerner, completed his tenure.
Olayinka, however, maintained that the political dynamics are now more complex. “The second thing that is too late is that you’re now saying the president should come from the South, but the issue is that another party that is in power has its candidate too from the same South and that candidate would have spent four years in office and will have four years more to spend,” he explained.
He added: “Now you’re presenting your (Southern) candidate to the North, will that North agree with a candidate that will be starting afresh? A candidate that would probably want to go for second term if he wins in 2031? Or a candidate that only has four years to spend?”
Meanwhile, discussions within the PDP have reportedly shifted to figures like former President Goodluck Jonathan and ex-Anambra governor Peter Obi as possible consensus choices. Jonathan, under constitutional provisions, can serve only one more term of four years, while Obi has publicly declared that he would run for a single term if elected president.
