The Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nyesom Wike, has dismissed claims that former President Goodluck Jonathan is being pressured to contest the 2027 presidential election, saying the former leader has not personally communicated such intentions to him.
Wike made the clarification during an interactive session with journalists in Abuja on Friday, where he addressed a range of political issues and ongoing speculations surrounding the 2027 polls.
"You’re the one telling me here. Jonathan has never told me; he has never called me one day that, look, I’m being pressured to run, what’s your thinking? If he calls me and asks me, I will be able to tell him my mind and what I feel," Wike said.
He criticised reports suggesting Jonathan’s return to the race, describing them as media fabrications.
"I will not because you people put something on the pages of the newspapers — just like you said they flew me out of the country — then, I now assume it’s correct," he said.
On the reported 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 development.
"I don’t know about Tanimu Turaki becoming chairman; maybe he becomes chairman for another faction — it’s not the PDP I know," he said.
Northern PDP stakeholders had recently endorsed Turaki as their preferred candidate ahead of the party’s national convention scheduled for November 15–16 in Ibadan, Oyo State.
However, Wike questioned the legality of the planned convention, hinting that he would not participate.
"How do you want me to attend a convention that I know by law that there is no convention?" he asked.
Meanwhile, reports suggest that former President Jonathan is facing mounting pressure from key Niger Delta leaders, including ex-militant leader Government Ekpemupolo, popularly known as Tompolo, to shelve any plans of returning to the presidential race and instead support President Bola Tinubu’s re-election bid.
According to Vanguard, several of Jonathan’s kinsmen are also urging him to back Tinubu in the spirit of regional cooperation and political stability ahead of the 2027 elections.
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