Recall that the PDP was hit by crisis after Alhaji Atiku Abubakar emerged as the party’s Presidential Candidate for the 2023 general elections. Some PDP governors and leaders, particularly from southern Nigeria were insistent that for fairness, northern Nigeria should not hold both the party’s presidential ticket and national chairmanship position. Leading in the struggle for the resignation of Ayu, who is from the North Central, is Gov. Nyesom Wike of Rivers and other leaders of the party from southern Nigeria. Also, Gov. Seyi Makinde of Oyo State and some South West PDP leaders on Sept. 17, called for Ayu’s resignation at the zone’s stakeholders’ meeting with Abubakar.

      In a statement jointly signed by the Coordinators of the forum, Messrs Banji Okunomo and Gani Taofik in Lagos on Thursday, the group threw its weight behind the calls for the resignation of the party chairman. According to it, the resignation of the chairman is the only panacea for peace in the party. “We, the above-named forum of the PDP, wish to affirm our support for the position being canvassed by Makinde, corroborated by the doggedness of the ‘Wikes’ and the wisdom of the ‘Bode Georges’, as a lasting panacea for peace and eventual victory of our party at the 2023 presidential election,” the group said.

    The forum said that Ayu should be able to sacrifice for Atiku to win the next election. “It is our take, that Ayu should indeed go further to logically and wisely conclude the process that will guarantee the emergence of Abubakar as the next president of Nigeria, by making other possible sacrifices necessary to achieve that goal. “Indeed, this is why and when Ayu himself will be more celebrated as PDP’s hero of democracy rather than clogging the party’s wheel of progress and creating an avoidable crisis for the party,” the group said. It urged Abubakar to be careful of the ill and reactionary advice of some moles in the party.

It said that the moles were insistent on offering opinions capable of jeopardizing the chance that God had opened for the PDP in the emerging dispensation. “Nigerians are indeed awaiting the PDP as the actual potent alternative government, and God forbids, if this opportunity skips us, Nigerians may never again associate with the PDP. “We call for immediate restoration of sanity, confidence, inclusiveness, and oneness in the Party as a stitch in time saves nine,” it said.

NAN recalls that the crisis got deeper on Wednesday when loyalists to Wike’s caucus pulled out of the Abubakar presidential campaign council after a meeting in Portharcourt, Rivers. The group said they would not participate in Atiku’s campaign activities unless the party’s national chairman vacated his seat for a southerner to allow ‘balance’ in the party.