The crisis rocking the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) got messier on Thursday when Rivers Governor Nyesom Wike threatened to help the party lose the 2023 presidential election. He spoke at the commissioning of a road in the Omerelu community of Ikwerre Council.
On Wednesday, the governor responded to Ayu’s comments that those asking him to step down were children.
In an interview with BBC Hausa, Ayu said, “I have not violated any rule; in fact, I am working to bring reforms to the party. I am truly not bothered by the unnecessary controversy being generated. When we started PDP, these children were not around. They are children who do not know why we formed the party. We will not allow any individual to destabilise our party.”
However, in his response, Wike described Ayu as a ‘greedy’ man who was only after his interests. He said it was obvious that Ayu wanted the PDP to lose in 2023, and he was willing to assist him in achieving that.
Wike explained that Ayu had, by self-volition, promised to relinquish his chairmanship as a Northerner if an aspirant from the North emerged as the PDP presidential candidate. The governor told Ayu to be a man of honour and keep his promise by relinquishing that position.
During the project’s inauguration, former Southwest Deputy National Chairman of PDP Chief Olabode George declared that the issue of the national chairman must be addressed before the commencement of the campaign for the 2023 general elections.
According to the life member of the Board of Trustees (BoT), Ayu’s utterances show he is ‘immature’.
“When a serving national chairman of our party calls elected governors’ children, does he think children don’t grow? We need to watch our language. It shows to me that it is he who is immature,” he said.
George agreed with Wike that Ayu should vacate his position and be replaced by a Southerner. “We are not begging for it; we demand it because it is our right,” he declared.
He argued that it is unfair that the PDP chairman, presidential candidate Atiku Abubakar, and PDP BoT chairman Walid Jibrin are all from the North.
REPORTERS AT LARGE earlier reported that a chieftain of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), Mr Dare Adeleke, has described Senator Iyorchia Ayu as an agent of destruction.
Adeleke, also the Executive Chairman of the Oyo Pacesetters Transport Company, revealed this in a release he signed and made available to REPORTERS AT LARGE on Thursday.
