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Walid Jibrin, chairman of the board of trustees (BoT) of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), is set to resign from his position, TheCable can report.
It has also emerged that some members of the PDP national working committee (NWC) met in Abuja on Tuesday and resolved not to attend any meeting presided over by Iyorchia Ayu, the national chairman, henceforth.
Jibrin has held the position for six years after taking over from Haliru Bello who was removed in 2016.
Sources close to the BoT chairman told TheCable on Wednesday that Jibrin has already briefed senior members of the party on his decision to quit.
“He said it is in the best interest of the party since there are complaints of regional lop-sidedness,” one of the sources said.
Atiku Abubakar, presidential candidate of the party, is from Adamawa (north-east), Jibrin hails from Nasarawa (north-central), and Ayu is from Benue (north-central).
In 2021, Ayu said he would resign as PDP national chairman if a northerner became the party’s presidential candidate.
However, despite calls for his resignation, the national chairman has stayed put, saying that those who want him out of office “are children”.
TheCable had reported how allies of Nyesom Wike, governor of Rivers, demanded that the PDP national chairman should step down — as a precondition for resolving their rift with Abubakar.
Insiders said some of the stakeholders welcomed Jibrin’s decision but also insisted that should Ayu resign from his position too “in the interest of equity”.
They said Abubakar must commit to stay in office for one term if elected president because power has been in the north for eight years.
“The stakeholders said now that President Muhammadu Buhari has been in office for eight years, it would not make sense for power to be in the north for another eight years,” another source said.
With Ayu’s woes unending, some members of the NWC have decided to move against him.
They are accusing him of failing to disclose that he got money from some presidential aspirants for the convention in May.
A national officer who attended the meeting said many NWC members have lost confidence in Ayu.
He said many are unhappy that Ayu called aggrieved members of the party “children” in the midst of peace efforts.
Some senior party members also believe Ayu mishandled his position by hailing Aminu Tambuwal as the “hero of the convention” for withdrawing for Atiku.
“It is the view of stakeholders that Ayu showed his bias openly,” the officer told TheCable.
