The Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nyesom Wike, has dismissed reports suggesting that former President Goodluck Jonathan plans to join the 2027 presidential race.
Speaking during a media parley in Abuja on Friday, Wike said Jonathan has never discussed any such ambition with him.
“You’re the one telling me here. Jonathan has never told me; he has never called me one day to say, ‘I’m being pressured to run what’s your thinking?’ If he calls me, I’ll tell him my mind,” Wike said.
He added: “I won’t assume something is true just because it’s on the pages of newspapers just like when they said I was flown out of the country.”
On reports that former Minister of Special Duties, Kabiru Tanimu Turaki (SAN), has emerged 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’s chairman of another faction—it’s not the PDP I know,” he quipped.
Northern PDP stakeholders recently endorsed Turaki ahead of the party’s national convention slated for November 15–16 in Ibadan, Oyo State.
However, Wike dismissed the planned convention as “illegal,” insisting he would not participate.
“How do you expect me to attend a convention that I know, by law, does not exist?” he asked.
Meanwhile, The News Chronicle observed that Jonathan is facing pressure from powerful Niger Delta figures, including ex-militant leader Government Ekpemupolo (Tompolo), to drop any alleged 2027 ambition and instead back President Bola Tinubu’s re-election bid.
Some of Jonathan’s associates in the region are also said to have urged him to shelve any comeback plans and throw his weight behind Tinubu’s second term.
