By Ibe Pascal Arogorn
The crisis currently rocking the People’s Democratic Party, PDP is getting messier, Ibe Pascal Arogorn writes from Owerri.
On Monday, the Peoples Democratic Party(PDP) Delta North senatorial candidate, Prince Ned Nwoko, described Rivers Governor, Nyesom Wike, as a nuisance who has done the party a lot of damage.
Nwoko, who spoke to reporters in Asaba, Delta Capital, decried that Wike was being treated with levity by the PDP hierarchy, adding that he should be shown the way out of the party.
According to him: ” Wike Is a nuisance, quote me anywhere. If I were the leader of the party, I would have acted differently. I would have done things differently. He has done a lot of damage to the PDP and I don’t know what they are waiting for to show him the way out.”
Meanwhile, the governor of Benue State, Samuel Ortom has asked Atiku Abubakar, the 2023 presidental candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP to go to hell.
The governor made the statement when he hosted his colleagues from Rivers, Oyo, Abia and Enugu States to a dinner party held at the government house, Makurdi.
The four governors, Nyesom Wike of Rivers State, Okezie Ikpeazu of Abia State, Seyi Makinde of Oyo and Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi of Enugu State, had arrived in Makurdi on Sunday for the official flag-off of the PDP governorship and parliamentary campaign scheduled for Monday.
Ortom said he would not support Atiku’s presidential bid to continue the killing of Benue people.
The governor lamented the killing of 18 persons in his council area last Friday where a young man in his 20s had his eyes removed to send a message to him.
He said, “To hell with Atiku and anyone supporting him. They should go and tell him. You want me to be slave for a Fulani. It’s better I die. Anybody supporting Atiku is an enemy of Benue.
“My people are being killed and you want me to be quiet.
“My tenure ends in May and you can do whatever you want if you think you have the powers. I have written my will. When I gave it to my wife, she cried all night. If I die at 62, many of my mates have gone long time ago and If I die today, I’m a fulfilled person but let it be recorded that I died resisting the invasion and killing of my people.
“I will never support a Fulani man to become president. If there is another person who is ready to work with me and ensure the security of my people, I will work with him,” Ortom said.
Also, the Benue governor, Samuel Ortom of Benue State, yesterday named a road leading to the house of National Chairman of the People’s Democratic Party, PDP as Governor Nyesom Wike road.
The road, which is behind the Commissioner’s Quarters in Makurdi and which leads to Ayu’s house, was inaugurated by a former governor of Benue, Gabriel Suswam.
Five governors of the PDP known as G5 on Monday stormed Makurdi, the Benue State capital, for the commissioning ceremony of some projects completed by Ortom.
The governors that attended the event alongside Ortom were Governors Seyi Makinde (Oyo), Nyesom Wike (Rivers), Okezie Ikpeazu (Abia), and Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi (Enugu).
On Sunday night, Wike said the PDP G5 are bonded to save Nigeria and nobody can break their ranks in their continued insistence that Ayu should resign as the national chairman of the party.
“People have tried to see how they can break us, you cannot. We are bonded to save Nigeria.
“That is why when you see all of us, we are impenetrable. Nobody can divide us. They have tried everything in this world to divide us, but no way.
“The way we operate; I will talk, we have people who don’t talk. You may be underrating them. By the time they will shock you, you will think it is Wike, it is not Wike you are seeing,” he said.
Meanwhile, a former Governor of Ekiti State, Ayo Fayose says the crisis rocking the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) may get “messier” if the contending issues are not quickly resolved.
The ex-governor, in a tweet on Sunday night, expressed concerns on the “serious turbulence” rocking the main opposition party.
“I see more serious turbulence for PDP more than ever before. I have been silent all this while hoping that things will get better.
“I advise we do more than we are doing now to resolve this crisis as events in days/weeks ahead may likely get messier. I pray this advice is not ignored,” Fayose tweeted.
I see more serious turbulence for PDP more than ever before.I have been silent all this while hoping that things will get better.I advise we do more than we are doing now to resolve this crisis as events in days/weeks ahead may likely get messier.I pray this advice is not ignored
— Peter Ayodele Fayose (@GovAyoFayose) November 6, 2022
Fayose contested the PDP presidential primary in May alongside others but lost to former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar. The ex-governor subsequently said a Southerner must emerge President in 2023. However, in September, he shifted hs position and said despite his support for Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike, he would work for the party’s presidential candidate (Atiku) in the 2023 general elections.
In Bauchi, Governor Bala Mohammed accused the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, of plotting to sabotage his re-election.
In a letter written to the national chairman of the party, Iyorcha Ayu, and dated November 3, 2022, Mohamed alleged that Atiku had threatened to “punish” him for contesting against him during the party’s presidential primary.
The letter reads in part: “There have been undisguised efforts to sabotage my re-election and impose on the state, a governor from another party who is ready to satisfy their selfish interests to the detriment of the larger interest of the people of the state.
“I wish to state that I am indeed surprised by the underserved of Atiku Abubakar towards me. He knows that I have always regarded him as an elder and I have always accorded him all the respect he deserves as the shining light of our North East zone and a foremost nationalist and statesman.
In recognition of this, we built and named one of the most important roads in Bauchi after him.
“You would recall that ahead of the formal flag off of the presidential campaign, we hosted a major rally for him in Bauchi. Could all this have been swept away simply because of a legitimate step I took which actually validated his victory?
“Why would he still ‘teach me a lesson’, when his trashing me at the primary is humbling enough?
Why would he allow political opportunists to ride on his back to wreck vengeance on his younger brother whose sole preoccupation is the upliftment of the people of Bauchi?
“While Alhaji Atiku Abubakar and his political cohorts insist that I must be punished for contesting against him during the presidential primary, the self acclaimed kingmakers around the Waziri Adamawa want a pound of flesh from me because I have refused to capitulate to their unbridled sense of entitlement which is pregnant with selfish and dictatorial tendencies.
“It would interest you to know that faced with this adversarial conditions, I complained to both our presidential candidate and his running mate as well as party elders whose names I do not want to mention here, yet the treachery has escalated under the watchful eyes of Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, who to all intents and purposes, is the leader of the groups.
“Based on the above, I wish to make the final following points; that our presidential candidate should issue a public statement disowning renegade elements who are neck deep in the anti party plot of subverting my re-election effort and to admonish members of our party to reject the devious overtures and manipulative strategies of my detractors.
“Short of complete public repudiation of those incognities within a reasonable time frame, coupled with explicit guarantee of sincerity of purpose and public support of my re-election by the presidential candidate, I may withdraw from the PCC and feel free to create new measures and feel free to create new measures and strategies that would guarantee the election and re-election of all PDP candidates in Bauchi and myself.”
Crisis Background
Recall that the five governors have been consistent in their demand that Iyorchia Ayu steps down as PDP national chairman, saying northerners should not be the PDP national chairman and presidential candidate.
However, Ayu, a Benue indigene, has insisted that he won’t step down till the end of his four-year tenure, even as the G5 makes his resignation a precondition to support Adamawa-born Atiku Abubakar’s 2023 presidential ambition.
