Former governor of Rivers State and a Minister designate, Nyesom Wike, visited the National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Dr Abdullahi Umar Gnaduje, in Abuja, on Tuesday.

Wike, who worked against the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, in the 2023 election, has repeatedly denied plotting to join the ruling party.

“I am not a member of APC and will not be. But, they have made me recognize that they are the heroes of this country. APC governors came out to say for the unity of this country, the presidency should go to the south,” he once said while dismissing the rumor.

But during a thanksgiving service organised in his honour shortly after he handed over power in Rivers, Governor Simi Fubara asked Wike not to abandon him if he ends up in the ruling party.

“While we are seeing sign that it’s like you want to go over to the other side with everybody wishing that, please don’t be too far from me because I know that the sharks, the tigers are really around looking for what to hurt. So, being around would continue to guide and put my head straight for the purpose of this state,” Fubara had said.

Speculations of him dumping the opposition party gained momentum after he made President Bola Tinubu’s cabinet.

PDP leaders had expressed displeasure over this and mulled the move to sanction the former Rivers governor.

Shortly before the senate confirmed him as a minister, Wike told BBC Pidgin why he had been hobnobbing with APC chieftains.

The former governor, who had earlier used the illustration of malaria and cancer to dismiss speculations that he was on the way to the ruling party, gave clarification.

Earlier when asked if he was thinking of dumping the PDP in the heat of the face-off with Atiku, Wike had said, “I get malaria, na cancer I dey find?”

However, defending his recent moves, including making to Tinubu’s cabinet, the former governor said while someone can die of Malaria, a person with cancer can get healed if has the opportunity of meeting a better doctor.

“If someone gets cancer, and he meets a better doctor, won’t he get a better treatment? And, if a patient has an ordinary malaria without a proper care, won’t he die with the malaria? Are you not aware that malaria kills people?

“And what is my concern if someone that has cancer is taken to a good hospital and meets a good doctor and gets healed? That’s just the truth [about the two parties].” (Daily Trust)

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