PDP crisis: Nwachukwu begs Ayu to step down

The national chairman of the party, Iyorchia Ayu, has been asked to voluntarily resign.

Nwachukwu Anakwenze, former presidential aspirant of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), made the call saying that he believes it would bring an end to the growing crisis rocking the opposition party.

It can be recalled that River State Governor, Nyesom Wike, had revealed details about some party leaders and the PDP presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar.

He also alleged that Ayu and other party chieftains conspired against him during the presidential primaries.

Following the revelations and embroiled crisis,

Anakwenze, in a statement in Abuja signed by the Director General of his Campaign Organisation, Comrade Eric Oluwole, on Saturday, pleaded with the PDP chairman to make the sacrifice by resigning if that would be the only condition to prevent the party from breaking apart and losing out in 2023.

According to him, he believed strongly that Ayu, as an eminent elder statesman of no mean status, will not consider any sacrifice, which indeed will turn him to a national hero, too big to make in the overall interest of the PDP and Nigeria, which is in need of an urgent rescue operation.

“Nevertheless, he believes that the Ndigbo of the South East within the PDP should be aggrieved more than Wike and any other political block within the party in the southern region, which he said had not been fair to the South East,” he said.

He pointed out that Ndigbo within the PDP are supposed to be more aggrieved than Wike, adding that “what we were pleading for then within the party is zoning. That was why I contested along my brothers including Sam Obuabunwa, Pius Anyim, Peter Obi and two others.

“We can’t blame Wike. He is right in what he is fighting for is balance and Justice for the South as for the North as well. It should be recalled that Obi, in frustration, left the party for the Labour Party because he believed that Ndigbo cannot be president on the platform of the PDP with the conditions prevailing within now. But I choose to still remain in the party because of the interest I have in the party,” he added.

According to him, if southern PDP stakeholders are calling Ayu to resign as a solution to the crisis within the party, “I think I have to appeal to him as a leader of our party, who has a good record, to do so, because of the overall interest and future of the party; and I know that he is going to be a hero if he does so.”