The National Chairman of the People’s, Democratic Party(PDP), Senator Iyorchia Ayu, has said he will not resign from office because he sees no reason for him to do so.
Mr. Ayu stated this in an interview with BBC Hausa Service on Wednesday.
He has been under pressure from a group of governors and former governors of the party, led by Rivers governor, Nyesom Wike, to step down and allow a southerner to take his position.
The governors had been complaining about the imbalance in the leadership of the party in which Mr. Ayu, the presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, and the heads of the major organs of the party are all from the North.
The party leaders also accused Mr. Ayu of being a partial and divisive leader.
But responding to the demand for his resignation on the programme on Wednesday morning, the PDP leader said those calling for his resignation are boys in the party who do not know how the party was formed.
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 the 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 former presidential aide, Dr. Doyin Okupe, yesterday, dismissed insinuations that the presidential candidate of the 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
But in his response, Mr. Ayu said he was elected by party members based on the guidelines stipulated by the party. He said party leaders had agreed during the convention that the party would not consider the zone where the party chairman hailed from when electing the presidential candidate.
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.”
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.”
