2023 Elections: Rivers PDP Backs Wike, Insists National Chairman, Ayu Must Go

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) chapter in Rivers State has backed Governor Nyesom Wike in whichever stance he takes in relation to the ongoing peace process inside the party.

According to Anaedoonline.ng, Atiku Abubakar, the former vice president and PDP presidential candidate, and Wike, along with a few governors, have been at odds ever since Atiku became the PDP’s front-runner for president in May 2022. When Ifeanyi Okowa, the governor of Delta State, was announced as Atiku’s running mate on June 16, the crisis grew worse. All attempts to reach a consensus have failed.

Atiku met with Wike and the governors of the states of Abia, Benue, Adamawa, and Oyo on Thursday in London. There were other PDP participants there, including Donald Duke.

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Wike and his allies reportedly demanded that Senator Iyorchia Ayu, the party’s national chairman, quit immediately when they presented their demands to Atiku during the meeting.

Lee Meaba, an associate of Atiku’s, dismissed calls for Ayu to be fired, saying it would be challenging for the opposition party to install a replacement before the election the next year.

Wike is the leader of the party in the state, hence Rivers PDP would support any choice he makes at any time, according to Tambari Sydney Gbara, the party’s state publicity secretary, who was speaking on Saturday in Port Harcourt.

He argued that the state chapter’s request for Ayu’s resignation was appropriate and that, according to the PDP constitution, it was improper for one region of the nation to produce both the national chairman and the party’s presidential candidate.

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Gbara said: “In 2007 and 2008, when President Musa Yar’Adua emerged as the standard bearer of the PDP at the national level, and Colonel Ahmadu Ali (retd), who was the national chairman at the time, had to resign and a mini-convention was immediately convoked, to elect Prince Vincent Ogbulafar from the South, to enthrone balance at the top of the party’s national leadership. Therefore, if this being the trend, why should it be different now?

“Zoning, as prescribed by the constitution of PDP, was put in place to make sure that at any point in time, be it elective positions, or public offices of the party, that the six geopolitical zones are recognised and carried along for equity sake

“The position of the Wike-led group of the PDP is asking that the National Chairman, Iyorchia Ayu, should resign, in line with what he publicly said on the day he was sworn in: that if the presidential candidate emerges from the North, for equity sake, he would resign.

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“So, it would be honourable of him to keep to his words. Therefore, justifying the position of those who are asking him to resign is very explicit and justifiable for fairness to all the geopolitical zones in the country.

“So, it is only natural that at this time, Iyorchia Ayu should do the needful. And it is so surprising that despite the positions of some very highly placed PDP members, who are equally in this course, that somebody like the BoT Chairman, Walil Jubril, had come out clearly to say it: that for peace to reign in the party, it is not proper for the national chairman to come from the same geopolitical zone with the presidential candidate. So, for peace to reign and for the party to move forward, that one has to give way.

“So, it is very surprising that somebody like Senator Lee Maeba, who is a Rivers State-born politician from the South is now the person kicking against it, despite the fact that the presidential candidate has told his media aides and other groups to desist from making comments that can truncate the peace process, which is ongoing to move the party forward.”

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