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By 247ureports.com
FCT Minister Nyesom Wike has dismissed Peter Obi’s public image of modesty as “fake,” accusing the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC) presidential candidate of using visits to displaced persons’ camps and roadside purchases of roasted corn to win votes, and declared that Rivers State will vote for President Bola Tinubu in 2027.
Wike spoke on Tuesday in Port Harcourt at a rally of youths of the Rivers Rainbow Coalition, the cross-party group he has been building to support Tinubu’s re-election. “You can make him the president of social media so that he can be going to IDP camps to celebrate their birthdays and be buying corn on the road, and then you will say, ‘Oh, very humble.’ Humble where? It’s fake. Who are you going to deceive? When you were governor, you didn’t go to an IDP camp to celebrate your birthday, you didn’t go to buy fuel by yourself. All of a sudden, just because you want to be president, you are now going.” He called Obi a “fake man” and a “social media president,” and said his supporters were bound to the internet. “Whether you are Atiku, whether you are Obi, Rivers State is for Tinubu!” he said, and told the crowd that Atiku Abubakar, the African Democratic Congress (ADC) candidate, is untrustworthy, adding: “What he says in the night is not what he says in the morning.” Reports say the crowd answered “No!” when he asked whether they would back Atiku.
The line follows similar remarks last week at the Idoma Hall of Fame induction in Abuja, where Wike cited Obi’s visit to a camp in Plateau State to mark his 62nd birthday in 2023 and said politicians who adopt public displays of modesty should not be believed. Obi has recently said he visited 12 camps across the country in recent weeks, including one in Sokoto State where he raised alarm over overcrowding. His supporters say the visits draw attention to people who have been forgotten, and Obi has said he will not trade insults with opponents. 247ureports.com had not located a response from Obi or the NDC to the latest remarks.
At the Port Harcourt event, the coalition’s youth leaders pledged to mobilise for Tinubu across all 23 local government areas, in tertiary institutions and among Rivers indigenes abroad. Wike has staked his own post on the outcome, saying he will resign as FCT Minister if Tinubu loses both Rivers and the FCT. In the 2023 election, Obi won the FCT by a wide margin, and Tinubu won Rivers.
