The Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nyesom Wike, has said that former President Goodluck Jonathan has not informed him of any intention to contest the 2027 presidential election.
Wike made the statement during a media parley with journalists on Friday, October 24, while reacting to reports that Jonathan was being pressured to rejoin the presidential race.
“You’re the one telling me now. Jonathan has never told me or called me to say, ‘Look, I’m being pressured to run—what do you think?’ If he calls me and asks, I’ll tell him my honest opinion,” Wike said. He added that he would not believe such claims merely because they appeared in the newspapers.
Speaking 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 move.
“I don’t know about Tanimu Turaki becoming chairman. Maybe he’s chairman of another faction—it’s not the PDP I know,” he remarked.
Northern PDP stakeholders had recently endorsed Turaki as their consensus choice ahead of the party’s national convention scheduled for November 15–16.
Wike further described the upcoming convention as illegal and suggested that he would not participate.
“How do you expect me to attend a convention that I know, by law, shouldn’t hold?” he asked.
His comments come amid reports that former President Jonathan is under mounting pressure to drop his speculated 2027 presidential ambition and instead support President Bola Tinubu’s re-election bid.
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