Tinubu appointing Wike as minister reduced PDP to APC's servant - Okonkwo

A former spokesperson of the Labour Party presidential campaign council, Kenneth Okonkwo, has stated that the appointment of former Rivers State Governor Nyesom Wike as minister by President Bola Tinubu has made leaders of the People Democratic Party (PDP) servitude to the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).

Okonkwo, a lawyer and Nollywood veteran revealed this during an interview on Channel Television’s Sunrise Daily programme on Friday, February 7, 2025.

He stressed that Wike's acceptance of Tinubu's ministerial appointment had reduced the main opposition party's standing.

In 2023, the former Rivers Governor and prominent PDP member accepted the President's appointment after working against his party's presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar.

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“Look at what is going on in the PDP. For instance, some people came out as G5 and worked against the interest of the party, not covertly but overtly, and everyone saw it. You accommodated them and then gave excuses for them.

“Normally, when you accept such things, it would start graduating, now they want to take over the party, and they’ve been given an appointment…then they would go ahead to hijack the party, and when they hijack it, the true members of the party would become servants to the servant because their main leader is now a servant to the APC by being a minister in the APC and the remaining ones are servants to that leader, meaning the PDP is now a servant of servant to the APC,” Okonkwo said.

Okonkwo addresses Atiku's bribery allegation against APC

The Labour Party chieftain reacted to a recent claim by Atiku that the APC is bribing opposition leaders ahead of the 2027 election, noting that the former Vice President's statement indicts opposition rather than the ruling party.

Okonkwo further argued that the APC should not be blamed for allegedly bribing the opposition parties because it is legitimate for the party to use whatever means necessary to destroy its opponents.

“I will never blame the ruling party or anything happening in the opposition party because excuses and successes do not go hand in hand. I listened to His Excellency Atiku Abubakar saying the ruling party gave N50m to the opposition party. I was not ashamed of the ruling party. I was ashamed of the opposition parties.

"You’re actually indicting the opposition parties that they are very corrupt. If there’s no willing receiver, there will be no available giver. It is a legitimate political weapon for any association, party or country to use whatever means to destabilise the opposition or opponent,” he added.

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Therefore, the lawyer urged opposition parties to admit their failures, noting that Atiku's bribery claim showed that the opposition was corrupt and lacked competence.

“Opposition has not lived up to the expectations of Nigerian people. They should own up, take responsibility for their failure and go back amongst themselves and do the right thing. Reject the ruling party’s offer to destabilize you because it is in their political interest to destabilise the opposition. But the opposition allowing itself to be destabilised shows that they are incompetent and corrupt,” Okonkwo concluded.