Presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, has sent a message to Rivers State governor, Nyesom Wike concerning the controversy in the party.
Wike, after losing the presidential primary to Atiku and also snubbed for the Vice presidential role for Ifeanyi Okowa, demanded the national chairman, Iyorchia Ayu, step down.
But Atiku, who led other leaders of the party to Ibadan on an interactive session with stakeholders of the PDP, said the call for the re-composition of the party’s National Working Committee (NWC) was not impossible, but only when the constitution of the party has been amended to accommodate such demand.
“The Peoples Democratic Party is the oldest political party in Nigeria since the return of democracy and even before then,” he was quoted as saying in a statement by his media adviser, Paul Ibe.
“It is a party that has laid down rules and regulations. I have been a member of the party since when it was formed, and I am still a member of the party up to the point of what it has grown to become.”
Amid the increased calls for the resignation of the party’s national chairman, Governor Seyi Makinde of Oyo State, while speaking on behalf of the South-West PDP, demanded that Ayu step aside.
In his response, the vice president said, “Personally, I don’t have any problem with where the party chairman comes from. The PDP is a party where there are laid down rules and regulations.
“What Governor Makinde is asking for is possible only when we have amended our party’s constitution. As things stand today, no single individual has the power to tamper with the NWC of the party. Doing so will be illegal and it will be against our rules in the party.”
According to the presidential candidate, Nigerians will not trust the PDP to govern by the tenets of rule of law if it takes such arbitrary action against itself.
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