The governor should pay me for seeing the light he never saw before – WIKE mocks DIRI after he defected to APC

Tuesday, November 4, 2025 - The Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Nyesom Wike, has mocked Bayelsa State Governor, Douye Diri, over his recent defection to the ruling All Progressives Congress, saying the governor owes him an apology after previously accusing him of working to destroy the Peoples Democratic Party.

Wike, who spoke on Politics Today on Channels Television on Monday, recalled how Diri and Oyo State Governor Seyi Makinde once accused him of colluding with the APC to weaken the PDP.

“Remember when (Governor) Diri the PDP, he was one of those who said that I am working for APC to destroy PDP. He was the chairman of the zoning committee of the party when he and Seyi Makinde met in Lagos to say they are zoning for the south.

“They both had a press conference and said we will not join them (those defecting to the APC) to the gutter,” Wike said.

Commenting on Diri’s defection, Wike said, “The undertaker has now helped him to move to the party that the undertaker was paid. Assuming I am an undertaker, as he said, shouldn’t Diri come to me and say, ‘Master, thank you?’

“If you say I am working for these people and paved the way for you to go there, he should pay me for seeing the light he never saw before. Leadership is key to everything you are doing.

“The man you people claim is working for the APC to kill the PDP is still in the PDP. But you people have run away to join the party that you said I am working for.”

Wike’s comments came barely hours after Diri formally dumped the PDP for the APC at a grand rally held at the Samson Siasia Sports Complex in Yenagoa, which was turned into a sea of APC colours, banners, and slogans.

The 5,000-capacity venue overflowed with supporters, women’s groups, and youth blocs celebrating the defection.

Announcing his move, Diri said he could no longer watch the PDP collapse under what he described as “terminal decline.”

According to him, his decision followed wide consultations with political leaders across Bayelsa and beyond.

“So knowing what was going on, after all my consultations with all the leaders, it was incumbent on me as governor to make a decision,” he added.

The governor also praised President Bola Tinubu for reviving the long-demanded Lagos–Calabar coastal road, saying it fulfilled a decades-long Ijaw aspiration.