PDP: Ayu blows hot, says calls on him to quit childish

The crisis rocking the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, deepened yesterday as the party’s National Chairman, Senator Iyorchia Ayu, yesterday, dismissed calls for his removal from office by Wike and members of his camp, wondering where they were when he and other Nigerians formed the party.

Both the PDP presidential candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar and Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers State have been engaged in a feud over moves to oust the party’s national chairman.

Though a reconciliation committee was set up by the two leaders, the committee is yet to reach a consensus on the way out of the feud.

But following the mixed signals emanating from the Rivers governor over crisis in the party, a PDP leader said attacks on Atiku and the party are deliberate.

This came on a day the PDP boasted that the exodus of members of the All Progressives Congress, APC, into its fold is evidence of APC’s imminent collapse.

Meanwhile, a foremer presidential aide, Dr Doyin Okupe, yesterday, dismissed insinuations that the presidential candidate of Labour Party, Peter Obi and the PDP candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar had entered a deal to work together for the 2023 general elections.

Ayu blows hot

Speaking in an interview with the Hausa Service of the BBC monitored in Abuja yesterday, Ayu, in a veiled reference to Governor Wike, declared that party leaders have worked so hard to a point where they cannot allow an individual destroy all they had laboured for.

His words: “I was elected to lead the PDP for a four-year term, I have not even spent one year. The election of Atiku as a presidential candidate has nothing to do with the position of national chairman. I won an election as prescribed by our party’s constitution.

“I did not commit any crime, I’m only bringing in positive reforms to the party, and honestly I’m not bothered by the noise.

“I know I’m working, I have not stolen any money, I have not committed any offence because of this. I don’t know what all that talk is about.”

In response to a question as to whether or not the yet-to-be resolved dispute with Governor Wike will affect the electoral fortunes of the party in 2023, Ayu said: “We founded the PDP in Nigeria. So, some children/kids, who have no inkling about the struggle, cannot become a problem.

“When we started the PDP, we did not see these children/kids, they didn’t know why we founded this party. We will not allow an individual to come and destroy our party.”

Wike’s attack on Atiku, PDP deliberate —Source

But a source, who is a member of the Board of Trustees, BoT, insisted that the party’s national chairman must resign for peace to reign, adding that the South-West is behind Wike.

The PDP leader, who spoke in confidence, said: “Wike knows what he is doing.

These people (Atiku’s camp) know what they are doing, they have insulted us. Some of us are the ones holding the party together and preventing it from disintegration. For peace to reign, the zoning committee met and resolved that the contest should be thrown open then for all aspirants to contest.

“Now, the North has the presidential candidate, they have Board of Trustees, PDP Governors’ Forum and National Chairman but the South has nothing. What we want is for Ayu to resign so that the South can produce the chairman and then have a sense of belonging.

“Atiku and Ayu are refusing that which shows that these people are the same; they are turning the PDP into a northern party. If we fail to do the needful, this will be the beginning of that break-up. Some of us will go home with dignity and we will not succumb to what they are doing.

“They say people are defecting in Katsina and Kano states to the PDP; it is because they have the candidate to show for it. What do we have in the South-West? Ayu is insisting that he won’t resign until after the election but we have alternatives. Ayu’s continued stay will kill the PDP and I don’t know where his loyalty is.”

‘Ayu must go’

On what will douse tension in the party, the PDP leader said Ayu’s ouster will lead to peace and ensure there is a sense of belonging within the party.

He said: “What can lead to peace is for Ayu to resign and tell the South-West to bring a candidate for the chairmanship. All Ayu is saying he won’t resign but Atiku knows the truth and he must do what is right.

“We must give our people a sense of belonging. Most of us in the South-West are behind Wike because what he is saying is in our interest. What we are asking for is to convince our people in South West that they are part of the leadership of the party.”

Mass exodus from APC evidence of imminent collapse —PDP

Meanwhile, with the recent defection of some APC members, the PDP said it had become evident the ruling party cannot secure the statutory 25% of votes in most states of the country.

In a statement by the party’s National Publicity Secretary, Mr Debo Ologunagba said: “The mammoth crowd that greets PDP’s rallies including the recent rallies in Kano and Katsina states are clear messages to the APC that they have been rejected by the people and have no foothold in the 2023 general elections.”

The statement reads: “The fact that Nigerians from all walks of life in Kano State, the political, commercial nerve center of the North and national melting point, defied the rain in a massive show of solidarity to the PDP and our Presidential Candidate, Atiku Abubakar, underscores their determination to break through all barriers and return the PDP to power in 2023.

“The current mass exodus from the APC into the PDP as being witnessed in most states including President Muhammadu Buhari’s home state of Katsina highpoints the consensus by Nigerians that the APC has irredeemably failed and that the PDP remains the only vehicle to rescue and rebuild the country from misrule of the APC.

“The takeover of President Buhari’s campaign office by the PDP in his home Katsina State following the defection of critical APC stakeholders in the State signals the surrender of the APC and its structure to the PDP in President Buhari’s supposed strongholds.

“Nigerians have seen through the lies and falsehood of the incompetent, rudderless, insensitive, divisive, bloodthirsty and terrorism-enabling APC that has brought nothing but misery, economic hardship, hatred, unprecedented disunity and bloodletting to our nation in the last seven years.

“Nigerians have seen the APC in its true identity; a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV); a pirate ship of inchoate sailors and strange bedfellows clobbered together for remote personal gains, not for governance and the public good.

“This is more so as the APC presidential candidate, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, BAT; the national leader of the failed APC government is no match to PDP’s presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, who has established his capacity to lead our nation out of the wood where Asiwaju and his failed APC plunged her.

“From all indications, under a credible, free, fair and transparent electoral process, the APC cannot secure the statutory 25% of votes in most states across the country.

“Our party, therefore, admonishes the APC not to bother to campaign in Kano, Katsina, other states of the north and of course, in other geo-political zones of the country as Nigerians have already aligned with the PDP to return our nation to the path of unity, national cohesion and economic prosperity.”

There’s no deal between Atiku and Obi —Okupe

Meanwhile, Okupe in a statement he signed in Abuja, yesterday, said: “I hereby categorically refute the false statement making the rounds that Peter Obi has made any deal with Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, the presidential candidate of the PDP, concerning the 2023 Presidential elections.

“By the Grace of God and the massive acceptance and support of the Nigerian people, home and abroad, and especially the youths, Obi is far ahead of all other presidential candidates in the country.

“He, therefore, cannot, logically, be negotiating with any other less popular candidates or their parties.

“Members of the public are hereby advised to ignore this cheap, self-serving and distracting propaganda, which we also believe is not coming from the Atiku camp.

“The train of the OBIdient movement gathers more and more electorates on an hourly basis, while it is evident that the political fortunes and followership of the other parties diminish and recede like a drying lake in the scorching heat of an arid desert.

“The Obi-Datti Presidential Campaign Organisation is focused on our mission which is to take back Nigeria and hand it over to the Nigerian Youths, to secure their collective destiny.”