The Peoples Democratic Party may in the coming weeks wield the hammer against some of its prominent members for rebelling against it and instead fraternising with the ruling All Progressives Congress and President Bola Tinubu.
Sunday PUNCH reliably gathered that the main opposition party was considering expelling key members of the G-5 governors elected on its platform, who refused to support the PDP presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, in the February 25, 2024 presidential election.
It was learnt that the PDP was planning to show the exit door to the immediate governor of Rivers State, Nyesom Wike, who was the arrow head of the rebel governors, as well as the immediate governor of Benue State, Samuel Ortom.
Apart from not supporting Atiku, the party considers the current romance Wike and Ortom are having with Tinubu and the APC as serious anti-party activity, whose consequence is expulsion.
The PDP has therefore warned that if the former governors accept any appointment from the President and the APC, they would be summarily expelled from the party.
It is not clear yet what the PDP plans to do with the other members of the G-5 as Governor Seyi Makinde of Oyo State is serving his second term on the platform of the party and participated at the recent retreat of the party in Bauchi, while the immediate past governors of Abia and Enugu states, Okezie Ikpeazu and Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi, appear to be in political wilderness having lost their respective bids to go to the Senate. Ortom similarly failed in his bid to become a senator.
However, the five ex-governors recently visited the President at the Aso Rock Presidential Villa in solidarity with Tinubu even as the PDP presidential candidate, Atiku, is still trying to upturn his victory at the Presidential Election Petition Court.