PDP crisis: Aggrieved govs, Ayu refuse to shift positions.

PDP crisis: Aggrieved govs, Ayu refuse to shift positions.

The crisis in the Peoples Democratic Party appears to have taken a different shape as disagreement between two camps continues to fester ahead of the general elections, write DIRISU YAKUBU and EL-AMEEN IBRAHIM

The crisis in the Peoples Democratic Party is showing no sign of abating with less than four months to the 2023 general elections. With the crisis taking new turns every week, hope of possible resolution appears far in the horizon. Currently, neither the presidential candidate of the party, Atiku Abubakar, the PDP National Chairman, Iyorchia Ayu on the one hand nor the five aggrieved governors led by Nyesom Wike on the other, have demonstrated sufficient eagerness to let go of their egos in the interest of the party.

For a party that once flirted with the possibility of presiding over the nation’s affairs for 60 unbroken years, the seemingly inability to forge a common front with a handful of months away to the polls, might jeopardise its chances of returning to the centre, thereby, postponing its bid to “rescue and rebuild” Nigeria.

Ayu has always claimed that the party is not in a crisis but marred by disputes and differences of political interest among members where discussions, and reconciliation, are ongoing. This does not remove the fact that the former Senate President started it all when barely a few weeks to the presidential convention of the party, he promised to let go of his plum office should a northerner emerge as candidate of the party.

Aware of the fault lines that have kept the country perpetually on her knees for decades, framers of the PDP constitution came up with the notion of equitable distribution of party positions and elective offices between the North and South.

Thus, when the party failed to zone its 2023 presidential ticket to the South as widely expected, Ayu, a northerner was taken to task of what to expect of him in the event of a northerner’s emergence as the party’s standard bearer.

Here was his response, “I’m a very democratic person and I will do everything to promote the interest and image of my party. If the PDP says I should step down after a presidential candidate emerges and happens to be from the North, I will be very glad to do so because what we want is to take over the government and run the government in the interest of Nigerians. So, I will sacrifice anything to ensure that my party wins.”

The man has since shifted his position though, arguing recently that only God can determine his fate as chairman of Nigeria’s largest opposition party.

Disturbed by the unkept promise, Nyesom Wike, Seyi Makinde, Samuel Ortom, Okezie Ikpeazu and Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi, Governors of Rivers, Oyo, Benue, Abia and Enugu states respectively have since formed a potent alliance against the Atiku Abubakar/Ifeanyi Okowa ticket, threatening to swing votes against the party unless Ayu honours his words.

The governor had in his recent chats with the media accused the national chairman of the party of pocketing N1bn donated to the party by a Lagos businessman, and N100m by a governor.

The national chairman, while breaking his silence on all the allegations raised by the governor in one of the party’s forums, explained that he had never collected any money from anybody, adding that the N100m that was donated to the party by a former member was used judiciously for the rehabilitation of the PDP institute which was almost ready for inauguration. Wike also accused the national chairman of manipulating processes during the convention to favour a certain aspirant, among other allegations.

Last week, Ayu at a public function in his Gboko country home, reminded Ortom, Ikpeazu, Makinde and Ugwuanyi of the enormous powers he wields, saying he could stop them from realising their political ambitions in 2023; a development that elicited sharp reaction from Wike who dared Ayu to stop anyone if truly he had what it would take to do so.

Reiterating his call on the National Chairman to quit, Wike last week said the PDP would sweep the polls at all levels in Rivers State, except the presidency, noting that the state chapter of the party had yet to decide who among the candidates to support.

For Governor Ortom, however, Ayu’s outburst was nothing but a lame threat, lacking in substance and with zero prospect of playing out. In a statement signed by his Chief Press Secretary, Nathaniel Ikyur, Ortom insisted that his victory at parliamentary primaries was a people’s given mandate which neither Ayu nor his loyalists could overturn.

Speaking against the backdrop of the recent outbursts by Wike and his camp, the immediate past National Secretary of the PDP, Ibrahim Tsauri, advanced reasons the party was finding it difficult, if not impossible to sanction the “erring” governors.

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