Nigeria: 2027 - Jonathan Has Not Told Me He Wants to Run for President - - Wike

The Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nyesom Wike, says former President Goodluck Jonathan has not informed him of any plan to contest the 2027 presidential election.

Wike made the remark during a media parley with journalists in Abuja on Friday, while responding to questions about speculations that Jonathan was being pressured to return to the presidential race.

"You're the one telling me here. Jonathan has never told me; he has never called me one day that, look, I'm being pressured to run, what's your thinking? If he calls me and asks me, I will be able to tell him my mind and what I feel," Wike said.

He added, "I will not because you people put something on the pages of the newspapers -- just like you said they flew me out of the country -- then, I now assume it's correct."

On the emergence of former Minister of Special Duties and Intergovernmental Affairs, Kabiru Tanimu Turaki (SAN), as the consensus candidate for the position of National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Wike distanced himself from the development, saying he knows nothing about it.

"I don't know about Tanimu Turaki becoming chairman; maybe he becomes chairman for another faction -- it's not the PDP I know," he stated.

The PDP Northern stakeholders had recently endorsed Turaki as their consensus candidate ahead of the party's national convention scheduled for November 15-16 in Ibadan, Oyo State.

Speaking further, Wike dismissed the upcoming convention as illegal, hinting that he would not attend.

"How do you want me to attend a convention that I know by law that there is no convention?" he queried.

Meanwhile, former President Jonathan is reportedly under intense pressure to drop his speculated 2027 presidential ambition and support President Bola Tinubu's re-election bid.

Vanguard reports that the pressure is being spearheaded by influential Niger Delta figures, including ex-militant leader Chief Government Ekpemupolo, popularly known as Tompolo.

Some of Jonathan's kinsmen in the Niger Delta are also said to have urged him to shelve any plans to return to power and instead back Tinubu's second-term bid.

Read the original article on Vanguard.