Presidential poll: Wike worked against me in Rivers – Obi

The presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP) in the February 25 elections, Peter Obi, has accused the Governor of Rivers State, Nyesom Wike, of working against him during the polls.

Obi, who spoke to Arise TV on Monday, also alleged foul play in the presidential election results in Rivers, claiming that he won in the state.

In Rivers, Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress won with 231,591 votes while the LP scored 175,071 votes.

Obi said people voted for him without considering ethnicity, but based on his pedigree, adding that he even got more votes from Lagos indigenes than those referred to as “visitors.”

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“In the South-East, it is a similar situation, people know me, people know what I stand for, people know I have kept my promises. People know I’ve kept to what I have said.

“It is a simple thing, people go about and say, oh! he got votes in Lagos because of the Igbo, and I ask how many Igbos live in Lagos? I got more votes from indigenes in Lagos than those who you can call visitors.

“Are they Igbo in Nasarawa? Are they Igbo in Plateau? Are they Igbo in Abuja? In Rivers, where you know that the governor came out against me and everything, I still… If the real votes of Rivers were counted, Reuben, I won. I had over 50 something per cent of the vote. The other two parties were sharing the others,” Obi said.

Meanwhile, Wike recently said that Obi was the hero of the elections, saying power would have remained in the North if he (Obi) didn’t contest.

Wike, who addressed Igbo traders at a town hall in Port Harcourt, on Saturday said Obi’s participation in the election guaranteed the emergence of a southerner as the president-elect.

According to the governor, the states where Obi recorded victories would have been won by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and allowed the North to retain power through the PDP candidate, Atiku Abubakar.