Don’t paint PDP presidential candidate in borrowed robes, Atiku’s aide tell Wike

Phrank Shaibu, an aide to Atiku Abubakar, presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), has asked Nyesom Wike, governor of Rivers, to apologise to the former vice-president.

Shaibu accused Wike of telling “unsubstantiated tales” about the 2003 presidential election.

The Rivers governor had, on Friday. said former President Olusegun Obasanjo knelt down and begged Abubakar to allow him to run for a second term, and the former vice-president agreed but said he must remove the late Tony Anenih, a PDP chieftain, from the campaign council at the time.

“You know one of the conditions he gave him? Tony Anenih must be sacked as the Minister of Works and Tony Anenih must not be in the presidential campaign council,” Wike had said at a project inauguration on Friday.

“Obasanjo obliged and sacked Tony Anenih as minister of works and removed him from the presidential campaign council.”

But in a statement on Saturday, Shaibu said it is not possible for the governor to give an account of what he was not privy to.

“It is also shameful that Wike, in justifying his macabre conduct, seeks to desecrate the memory of late Chief Tony Anenih,” he said.

“Chief Anenih remained a close ally of Atiku Abubakar up to his last moment. Beyond that, the relationship between the Anenih political dynasty and that of Atiku remains cordial till date.

“It is therefore deserving that Wike renders an apology to President Olusegun Obasanjo,Vice-President Atiku and the Anenih family.

“The former president is a revered statesman and it is highly unworthy that Wike would make vile comments about his tenure as president and leader of the PDP, paint vice president Atiku in borrowed robes and dance on the grave of chief Tony Anenih.”