The governorship candidate of the Social Democratic Party in Rivers State, Sen. Magnus Abe has unveiled his running mate for the 2023 election.

Abe unveiled his running mate on Saturday in Port Harcourt, in an event attended by leaders of the party.

His running mate is a former Permanent Secretary, Patricia Ogbonnanya.

Speaking during the ceremony, Sen. Abe explained that his choice of an Ekpeye woman over other tribes in the state is because the Ekpeye people were yet to produce anybody in the leadership position in the state.

The former senator, who is from the Ogoni extraction, said he could not have picked a Kalahari person because the current deputy governor Dr. Ipalibo Harry Banigo is from Kalabari.

He said, “I know that the most natural question anybody would want to ask is why did he go to Kalabari to choose his Deputy. We decided we won’t.

“The outgoing Deputy Governor of the state is Kalabari, so it would have made no political sense to go back to the same place to offer them something that they just finished with.

“So we felt that we should look outside the Kalabari area. The other area we could reasonably go to was Okrika but we felt Okrirka was right next door to Ogoni, it would mean that a whole section of the state will feel far from what we are doing”.

He also made a case for the jettisoning of the Riverine-upland dichotomy, saying people must be identified by their tribe.

Abe said this was part of what his party considered before making the choice of a running mate.

“I, as Ogoni, I will like to call everybody by name so that we know those that have gotten something and those who have not gotten”.

The senator also unveiled Sen. Wilson Ake as the Director General of his campaign organizations.

That's good