The Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Nyesom Wike, has rejected allegations that he manipulated the 2023 presidential election in the South-South to favour President Bola Tinubu over Labour Party candidate Peter Obi.
Wike made the clarification on Wednesday while speaking with journalists in Abuja, describing the allegations as a “baseless narrative” largely circulated on social media.
The controversy followed his earlier comments about the role of the G5 governors during the 2023 election, when he explained that the group adopted a political strategy aimed at preventing the Peoples Democratic Party’s presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, from gaining an advantage in the South-South.
Wike said the strategy involved allowing Obi to secure votes in some areas where the PDP had traditionally been strong, arguing that this would reduce the votes available to Atiku.
He questioned how he could have personally rigged an election conducted across thousands of polling units, stressing that election results could not simply be determined by one individual.
The former Rivers State governor also argued that social media discussions should not be treated as a substitute for actual election results, noting that Nigeria had about 176,000 polling units during the election.
Wike further pointed to the absence of what he described as concrete evidence presented before an election tribunal to support claims that the 2023 presidential election result in Rivers State had been manipulated.
Explaining the G5’s calculations, he said Atiku was regarded as the group’s major political concern because the South-South was traditionally a strong PDP region. According to him, allowing Obi to win votes in certain areas was intended to prevent Atiku from securing them.
Wike maintained that Obi was not regarded as the primary political threat in the group’s calculations, adding that online popularity did not necessarily translate into votes across the country.
He also rejected the suggestion that election rigging could simply determine results in areas where a candidate lacked genuine support, saying voters would resist such attempts.
Wike concluded that the G5 had its own political strategy during the 2023 election and maintained that the strategy achieved its intended political objective.
