Wike Rejects 2023 Election Rigging Allegations

Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Nyesom Wike, has denied allegations that he rigged the 2023 presidential election in the South-South to favour President Bola Tinubu over Labour Party candidate Peter Obi.

Wike made the clarification while addressing journalists in Abuja on Wednesday, describing the allegation as a “baseless narrative propagated primarily on social media”.

The controversy followed comments he made during an appearance on TVC’s Journalists’ Hangout, where he said the G5 group of Peoples Democratic Party governors had deliberately allowed Obi to win in some South-South states as part of a strategy to weaken the chances of the PDP’s presidential candidate at the time, Atiku Abubakar.

Some critics and opposition figures interpreted the remarks as an admission of electoral manipulation.

Wike, however, rejected that interpretation, saying the strategy involved political calculations rather than altering election results.

Wike Questions Rigging Allegations

Responding to claims that he personally changed result sheets in favour of Tinubu, Wike questioned how one person could manipulate results across thousands of polling units.

“People who don’t understand, how can they say I rigged the election? How would I have done it? So, I just took the result sheets, wrote it, and gave it to INEC?” he asked.

He also cautioned against drawing conclusions about election outcomes from social media posts and results from a limited number of polling units.

“I’ve always said social media does not win elections,” he said, referring to Nigeria’s large number of polling units.

Wike further challenged opposition parties to identify evidence they presented from Rivers State during the legal challenges that followed the 2023 election.

“You remember that when they went to the tribunal, did anybody tender any result from Rivers to say, ‘look, this is the result, we won’?” he asked.

G5 Strategy Targeted Atiku

Explaining the strategy he described during his earlier interview, Wike said the G5 considered Atiku a greater political threat in the South-South because of the PDP’s traditional strength in the region.

He said the group decided that allowing Obi to win in some areas would prevent Atiku from benefiting from the PDP’s established support base.

“We felt that Atiku was more of a factor in that election than Obi. So our strategy was that, make sure that you vote for Obi to win in order to deny Atiku the votes,” Wike said. He specifically cited Edo and Cross River as states where the strategy was applied, according to his earlier account.

Wike also argued that Obi’s influence was greater on social media than in the overall electoral calculations he said the G5 was making at the time.

“Obi wasn’t a threat. Obi was merely a threat by social media,” he said.

The minister maintained that electoral manipulation could not simply be imposed in places where a candidate lacked genuine support.

“When you talk about rigging, you cannot rig an election where you are not popular,” he said.

Wike said the G5’s approach was deliberate and achieved its intended political objective.

“We had our strategy, and that strategy worked well for us. Our major opponent was Atiku Abubakar and if we didn’t do that, something would have happened,” he said.