The activities of PDP National Chairman Dr. Iyorchia Ayu and presidential candidate Atiku Abubakar, according to Rivers Governor Nyesom Wike, are casting doubt on the party among voters ahead of the 2023 presidential election.
The Rivers governor stated that Atiku and Ayu’s failure to keep their pledges has made them appear unreliable in the eyes of Nigerians during a two-hour live media discussion on the crisis roiling the PDP at Government House in Port Harcourt.
When the party abandoned its zoning principle of elective offices to make room for a northerner as the presidential candidate rather than a Southerner, Wike claimed the party created the groundwork for the current issue.
He said: “The constitution of our party provides that there shall be zoning of party and elective offices. It is clear. Not ambiguous. But people will always try to manipulate the system to suit them.
“They slant stories in such a way as to deceive the public. The founding fathers know the complexity of this country. They did it in a such a way as not to have problems”.
He claimed that PDP needed to be reorganized to provide the South a sense of belonging because it had cornered itself and was now being pursued by a single choice.
He remembered that Atiku had visited him soon after he had been chosen as the party’s standard bearer and had informed him that Ayu had to leave his position in order to correct the structural imbalance in the party.
Wike also recalled that Ayu, prior to being chosen as chairman, had pledged to step down if a presidential candidate of northern extraction emerged at the convention.
The Governor went on to discuss the results of their meeting with Atiku in London, stating that the candidate promised to ensure Ayu’s resignation and begged them to let him a week to figure out the details.
However, he claimed that they were shocked by Atiku’s disrespectful behavior when, rather than providing them with comments, he attended an event and declared that any attempt to remove Ayu would result in a constitutional catastrophe.
Regarding how former President Goodluck Jonathan was degraded by Atiku and former Senate President Bukola Saraki, Wike said: “The founding fathers of our party never made a mistake, they knew the complexity of this country and therefore they arranged it in a such a way we do not have problems in our party.
“People should not forget history. It may not be favourable to you but for the sake of the society and the country, you must remember. In 2014, there was this issue of the presidential candidate of the party. Jonathan emerged as the presidential candidate.
“You also remembered that many people walked out of that convention. People like the candidate of our party today, Alh. Atiku Abubakar, Aminu Tanbuwal was one of them, the former Senate President, Saraki was one of them. They all walked out saying that the presidency must come to the north.
“Of course President Jonathan, a sitting president, did everything to talk to them to come back to the party. Jonathan was rebuffed as a sitting President. I even remembered there was a time he travelled to London to see Atiku, he rebuffed Jonathan, who was a sitting President.
“We decided to remain in the party. You heard when the former Niger State Governor, Aliyu Babangida came out and said they all agreed to work against the candidate of our party.
“But what is important is that some members of our party played anti-party activities because they believed that the presidential candidate should come from the north”.
On why the current structure in PDP cannot stand, Wike said: “We have had our primary and the Presidential Candidate emerged. But before the candidate emerged, there was the issue of where will the chairmanship go to because in our party the chairman comes from south and the candidate comes from north and vice versa.
“The intention of the founding fathers is to allow for inclusiveness, for everybody to participate in the hierarchy of decision making. As it is today three major persons make decision for the party. One is the national chairman, the presidential candidate or the President if you are in power and then the Director-Geeneral of the campaign.”
“We from the South, before, now we have met and said the presidency must come to the south. The APC and PDP met.
“When this idea was mooted, they met and agreed that the conveners of these meetings will be the Governor of Ondo, Akeredolu, the Governor of Ebonyi, Umahi and the Governor of Delta, Okowa. They became the chief Convener of the southern governors forum.
“The first meeting was held in Asaba. It was agreed that President Muhammadu Buhari coming from the north had done eight years and therefore, the next should come from the South. The next meeting was held in Lagos and it was stated clearly that this is what they must pursue.
“The final meeting was held in Enugu. I don’t want to say certain statements made by some governors at that meeting. I remembered that one of the governors said, ‘how will I tell my children that I cannot be a president because I do not come from a particular section of the country’.
“At the appropriate time I will let you know the governor. We said that Secondus was already rounding off his term and cannot go back since the presidency is coming to the south. It was not a personal thing.
“We went to the party and there were arguments and counter arguments started. I was even surprised at the behavior of some of the governors, who were even the conveners of the forum.
“Luckily the party set up a committee. At that committee, the governor of Benue State, governor Ortom was the chairman of the zoning committee. They cleverly came up with the idea that only party offices should be zoned not the elective offices.
“Some people believed they are more intelligent than others. Some of us said that, this at the end of the day, will cause crisis for us. The chairmanship was now zoned to the north and that was why no southerner contested the position.
“When we lost election in 2015, the party sat down, formed a committee under Ekweremadu. The committee came out and said we should zone the presidency to the north. That was why in 2018 convention, there was nobody from the South who contested that position.
“All the presidential aspirants came from the north and everybody would remember. We gave Atiku all the support. No state contributed more than Rivers.
“Those of them who claim they are highly connected and that they are the founding fathers of the party, now said there should be no zoning of the presidential ticket, ‘leave it open let the best candidate emerge because they think they have the number’.”
The Governor provided a thorough narrative of the circumstances surrounding his participation in the party’s primaries and how Ayu allegedly manipulated the process to favor Atiku while discussing how he is accused of doing so.
Wike claimed that his main regret was not being able to pursue his prior plans, if elected president, to pursue bandits and oil thieves.
He said: “We have jettisoned our constitution knowing that we are laying a foundation, a seed of discord in future. But before the primary, Ayu emerged as the chairman. I stand to challenge anybody, Ayu kept thanking me and promising to unite the party. They started selling forms. And people bought forms and said there is no need to zone. I see fraud and manipulation.
“But some of us came out to say we want to run. The only thing is can tell you today I feel pained is that I don’t have the opportunity to fight bandits and oil theft. The two things I told myself I was going to do was to take on insecurity head-on and the issue of oil theft affecting our economy today. But it is God that gives power.
“We campaigned seriously. They were shocked at the modus of our campaign. There were meetings upon meetings. A whole national chairman threatened some of the presidential candidates at that time that if Wike wins he was going to resign.
“In fact, he was calling aspirants to withdraw for Atiku Abubakar. Bala Mohammed is there. Saraki is there. Tambuwal is there. Meetings were called upon. ‘you must withdraw if not we will lose, Wike will win’.
“This is a national chairman of a party who is supposed to be the chief umpire. Even at the primary. That was why we started the primary very late. Meetings were going on asking people to step down. Some of the top retired generals were involved. Some of the meetings were held in their houses.
“But even in the committee for the convention, when we met in Benue Governor’s Lodge with the national working committee, I told the National Chairman that the people he was fronting as the chairmen of the committees were all supporters of Atiku Abubakar. He said no.
“I told him we didn’t want the party to be in crisis and challenged him to do the right thing so that at the end of the day all of us will be he happy. We are opposition party not the ruling party and we must conduct ourselves in such a way to avoid internal crisis.
“But there was nothing Ayu didn’t do, manipulation of delegate list. Unfortunately to them, the numbers were not adding up. There was nothing they didn’t do to ensure Wike did not emerge. We went to the convenrion.
“You remember I spoke last. When I came out to speak, there was danger. The ovation was thunderous. It became a problem to them. I was highly disappointed by the former Senate President. It has never happened in the history of elections. In fact, when you are speaking whatever thing you want to do you say it at that point.
“When everybody had spoken for them to commence, a whole chairman of the national convention planning committee said there was an announcement. It has never happened anywhere. People were thinking it was for security reasons.
“But he gave back the microphone to Tambuwal to come again and speak after everybody had spoken to say he want to withdraw. He now went ahead to say people should vote for Atiku Abubakar.
“At that point if not for the love of the party, that convention wouldn’t have held. There would have been crisis in that convention. But we decided to go ahead for peace to reign. We decided to avoid anything that would cause problem. I would have said the convention would not hold and if heaven was going to come down we would have allowed heaven to come down that day.
“After you have done all you have done, you now went to Tambuwal to say he was the hero of the convention, a national chairman. We taught it was over and there would be reconciliation”.
