PDP BoT chairman set to resign as NWC members revolt against Ayu

From Ogundele Olanrewaju

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 the board from Haliru Bello who was removed in 2016.

Sources close to the BoT chairman told TheCable on Wednesday that Jibrin has already briefed senoir members of the party of 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 becomes 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 presidential convention in May.

A national officer who attended the meeting said many NWC members have lost confidence in Ayu.

He said many members are unhappy that Ayu called aggrieved members of the party “children” in the midst of peace efforts.

THE PDP CRISIS

Crisis engulfed the country’s main opposition party after Abubakar became the party’s standard bearer and purportedly overlooked Wike who was preferred by majority of the NWC members.

The former vice-president won the presidential primary poll after Aminu Tambuwal, governor of Sokoto, dramatically pulled out of the exercise and backed him.

Despite the preference of Wike for the position of the party’s vice-presidential candidate, Abubakar chose Ifeanyi Okowa, governor of Delta.

Abubakar has been making attempts to get the Rivers governor on his good side.

But both men are yet to resolve their differences despite having at least two meetings.