Following outcomes of the meeting between the Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike, and selected members of the Peoples Democratic Party’s (PDP) Board of Trustees (BoT) in Port Harcourt on Tuesday, fresh details have emerged that the National Chairman of the party, Iyorchia Ayu might be advised to resign.
According to reports gathered by Naija News, there is a very high tendency that the BoT might advise Ayu to resign because all efforts to resolve the lingering crisis with Wike has proved abortive.
Our reporter learnt that during the meeting, Wike told the BoT members about how the party’s presidential aspirant Atiku Abubakar had continually failed to fulfil all his promises to the five governors who are bent on Ayu’s removal.
A former national officer of the party disclosed that Wike narrated all that had transpired between the aggrieved governors and the party’s presidential aspirant to the BoT and how Atiku had disappointed the Southern bloc of the party over and over with many unfulfilled promises.
The source further said that Wike vowed not to have anything to do with the PDP Campaign Council unless the embattled national chairman resigned from office.
Wike was said to have nominated a former governor of a South-South state to serve as the vice-presidential candidate before Atiku selected Delta State Governor, Ifeanyi Okowa, as his running mate, on Wike’s refusal to be.
Wike reportedly told the BoT that Atiku disappointed him and that he didn’t bargain for vice president; adding that it was Atiku who begged him and when he eventually agreed and he expected them to work something out, he came back to say he had picked Okowa.
But when Atiku chose Okowa, he didn’t come back to them (Wike and other governors) to say anything. And the speech he made when he was unveiling Okowa was very disappointing,” the source quoted Wike to have said.
The former national officer also said Wike told the BoT that Atiku came to London and assured him that Ayu would resign to balance things and then complained about the gang-up and sharing of positions which they had already done.
He continued that the BoT members were speechless after hearing Wike’s narration and better understood his point of how he has been wronged.
Wike was reported to have replied that the only way forward was for Ayu to resign and that if he didn’t, nobody should talk to him about PDP again, but vowed not to leave the party but also not to work for Atiku.
The source also noted how Wike was pained about how Atiku’s loyalist insulted him publicly and the former vice-president failed to caution them to order.
However, It was learnt that a member of the BoT Reconciliation Committee, Shuaibu Oyedokun, had revealed that the meeting of the advisory body would hold as soon as the committee’s report is ready.
Oyedokun said the committee was now ready to compile its report to be presented to the BoT, since they have visited all the governors in Wike’s camp as well as Atiku and his running mate.
“After compilation, we will submit our report to a larger BoT meeting which will consider it before submitting it to the NWC. The working committee will in turn present it to NEC (National Executive Committee),” Oyedokun stated.
In a Punch Newspaper report, the former Jigawa State Governor and NEC, Sule Lamido, came short of ruling out an immediate solution to the crisis saying, “It (reconciliation) is a continuous process up to the elections and even beyond.”
The report said like Lamido, a former National Vice Chairman (South-West) of the party, Eddy Olafeso, wants Nigerians to be patient with the party, stressing that the crisis would become a thing of the past in no distant time.
It will be recalled that the Acting BoT Chairman, Adolphus Wabara led other members including the former Minister of Special Duties and Inter-Governmental Relations, Tanimu Turaki, ex-Kogi State Governor, Ibrahim Idris, and four others to Port Harcourt on Tuesday to meet Wike for reconciliation.
