Rivers Gov. Nyesom Wike said in Port Harcourt on Thursday that rent seekers in the People Democratic Party (PDP) were frustrating his efforts for amicable resolution of the crisis rocking the party.
He made the declaration while hosting the Cross River PDP governorship candidate, Sen. Sandy Onor, and party stalwarts who visited him.
Wike explained that the seeming intractable crisis in the PDP lingered because some vested interests, whom he described as “hyenas and rent seekers’’, remained obstinate and averse to justice, fairness and equity.
He said he would not support the current situation where the party’s presidential candidate, the national chairman and the director-general of the Presidential Campaign Council are all from the northern part of the country.
The governor said it was hypocritical of PDP members to criticise Muslim/Muslim ticket, while supporting that a particular region of the country should retain the presidency for another eight years.
He insisted that for the sake of peace, PDP should adhere to its Constitution, which recommends that when a presidential candidate emerges from the North, the national chairman should be from the South.
“The National Chairman said, if the presidential candidate comes from the North, he will resign; which means he has had this in mind.
“Now, the thing has come to reality; now resign, he said `no’ and people are saying go and talk to Wike.
“I have accepted the presidential candidate. I have accepted the vice- presidential candidate, what’s the problem again?
“You, fulfil your part. Let the South have something; that is all I am preaching. You cannot have presidential candidate, national chairman, director-general of the campaign,’’ he stressed.
Wike said there were more things that were wrong with the arrangement.
“Nobody wants to speak the truth,’’ he persisted.
According to him, refusal to cede the national chairmanship position to the South will be a recipe for crisis in the party.
He said that the clamour for the chairmanship of the PDP to be zoned to the South would persist until justice, fairness and equity prevailed.
Wike said the visit of the Cross Rivers delegates would spur him to continue to support the party in Cross River ahead of the 2023 general elections.
He announced the donation of 25 buses to the party in Cross River and said while he would not go to the state to vote, he would support the candidates as his friends.
He thanked Cross River PDP delegates for the support given to him at the PDP presidential primary election.
Earlier, Sen. Onor, who led the delegation, said Gov. Wike remained a trail blazer for justice, fairness and equity.
Onor stressed that no person in the contemporary history of the PDP had made more sacrifices for the party than Gov. Wike had done.
He commended Wike for his steadfast support for the party in Cross River, and said the visit was to express the party’s gratitude for his unparalleled benevolence.
Similarly, Sen. Jarigbe Agom Jarigbe, (PDP-Cross River-North) noted that without Wike’s support, PDP would have been made extinct in Cross River.
On his part, Mr Venatius Ikem, Cross River PDP Chairman, thanked Wike for his unrelenting support of the party.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the delegation comprised South-South PDP National Vice-Chairman, Mr Dan Orbih and other party members.
Also in the delegation were Cross River PDP senatorial, House of Representatives, House of Assembly candidates and PDP local government party chairmen.