On September 6, Nyesom Wike, governor of Rivers, said his state has given the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) the highest votes since 1999.
He said this at the inauguration of the Etche campus of Rivers State University in the Abara community of Etche LGA amid a row with the leadership of the party.
“At the appropriate time, we will make a decision on what to do. This is because since 1999 — I want Rivers people to reflect on this, ponder over it, and bring the highest votes to the PDP — I challenge any state to say they brought more votes for the PDP. I challenge any state to say, in terms of support, for the PDP,” he said.
“Which state has given more support than Rivers state? Is there anyone? Since 1999, show me one federal project in Rivers state. Is there anyone? So, if you want our votes, then tell me what you will give Rivers people. Our votes are not for dash anymore.”
VERIFICATION
To distinguish himself as an indispensable member of the PDP, Wike has continued to flex his political muscle by commissioning projects, hobnobbing with members of the ruling party, and now emphasizing the roles the state he governs has played in the party since 1999.
To ascertain Wike’s claim, TheCable checked through presidential election results from 1999 to 2019.
1999 to 2007
1999 marked a year of transition from a military government to a democracy. The start of fourth republic saw a fierce contest to the presidential seat between Olusegun Obasanjo of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Oluyemi Falae, who contested on the joint platform of the Alliance for Democracy (AD) and the All People’s Prty (APP).
The result of the 1999 election saw Obasanjo defeat Olu Falae. Electoral Geography reported that PDP had 18,738,154 to defeat AD-APP who polled 11,110,287.
While Falae swept the south-west, Obasanjo’s PDP got its highest votes from Rivers where the party commanded 1,352,275 votes. The highest in the election.
In 2003, Electoral Geography said the PDP again recorded its highest votes in Rivers with a massive 2, 003, 521, which saw Obasanjo retain the presidential seat for a second term after defeating his toughest rival Muhammadu Buhari, the presidential candidate of All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP).
Four years later, Umaru Musa Yar’Adua contested under the umbrella of the PDP and raging on the power of incumbency, the party accrued 1.8 million votes from Rivers alone, in an election where the party defeated both Buhari of the ANPP and Atiku Abubakar of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN).
However, TheCable had reported back in 2018 that the Independent Electoral Commission does not have the offfical results of the 2007 elections. The presidential election held on April 21 that year is the first and only in Nigeria’s history in which there is no state-by-state breakdown of the candidates’ scores.
However, snippets of results showed that in Rivers state, Yar’Adua scored 1.8 million votes while Atiku and Buhari polled a total of 109,000.
2011 t0 2019
2011 ushered in Goodluck Jonathan, the former vice-president, who took the reins of power after the demise of Yar’adua, the former president. According to Reuters, in the election that saw Jonathan go toe-to-toe with Buhari, Rivers produced a wholesome 1,817,762 to elect the ruling party into power for the fourth term since 1999.
Amid the growling pangs of insecurity that dominated the country at the time, Jonathan seeked a second term in office, a bidding that coincided with the first time Nyesom Wike threw his hat into the Rivers governorship in 2015.
This time, as reported by Reuters, PDP garnered 1, 487, 075 votes from the south-south state but lost the presidential election to All Progressives Congress (APC) who fielded Muhammadu Buhari.
However, in 2019, Tekedia reported that PDP had 473, 971 in Rivers behind Anambra (524, 738); Delta (594, 068); Plateau (548, 665) and Kaduna with (649, 612), the highest votes PDP got from a state in that election year.
This is to say that in the last presidential election, Rivers failed to deliver the highest vote in an election for the PDP. This development largely flaws his claim, since the likes of Kaduna, Plateau and other accrued more votes that the south-south state.
VERDICT
Though Wike’s claim is quite ambigious, TheCable splits the statement into two. If Wike uttered the statement to mean that in every election cycle, Rivers has produced the highest vote to PDP, then that would be false, because the case was different in 2019.
But if he means that since 1999 up till 2019, the state that has produced the highest vote in total for the PDP is Rivers, then the former minister of state for education is right.
