A chieftain of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Dr. Sam Ohuabunwa, has said that he would not be sleeping well if he were the presidential candidate of the party, Atiku Abubakar.
Ohuabunwa said the meetings between the Governor of Rivers State, Nyesom Wike, and some opposition politicians, especially the presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP) would have made him lose sleep.
The former presidential aspirant on the PDP platform said this on a Channels Television program on Tuesday (yesterday) night.
Since losing his bid to pick the PDP’s presidential ticket to Atiku Abubakar, Wike has been fraternizing with opposition politicians—being seen frequently seen in their company, holding meetings with them, and inviting them over to his states to perform official functions.
Wike again met with Peter Obi on Monday. It was an expanded meeting that had a former governor of Ondo State, Olusegun Mimiko in attendance.
The trio later met with other top politicians including a former Cross River Governor, Donald Duke; the Governor of Benue State, Samuel Ortom; the Governor of Abia State, Okezie Ikpeazu; a former governor of Gombe State, Ibrahim Dankwambo; and a host of others.
Ohuabunwa seems to suggest that the leadership of the PDP leadership, including Atiku, is taking the competition coming from candidates like Peter Obi for granted, warning that it is a dangerous thing to do.
The former President of the Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria insisted that if he was Atiku, he would take the hobnobbing and meetings in Port Harcourt seriously, noting that no political meeting is for nothing.
He said:
“One of the greatest failures of people is to underrate competitors. As the CEO of a multi-national company for many years, I do not underrate competition no matter how small they are.
“And every move the competitor makes in the marketplace causes an alarm for me and I deploy forces to counter those quickly because you don’t have a second chance.
He also suggested that the PDP needs to change the perception of a crisis-ridden party that the public has about.
He said if he was the chairman of the party or its presidential candidate, he would make sure that for every of such political meetings, he would respond almost immediately to counter their effects. He added that he would also seek a speedy closure to the Wike-PDP faceoff to make progress.
Ohuabunwa said the state of affairs in the party at the moment is in pretty bad shape and time is running out for the party to sort itself out.
He noted that the Wike-Atiku standoff, though not the only issue in the party, is the most visible one and should have been resolved by now, to allow time to deal with other issues.