Ayu’s camp Jittery, Believes PDP National Chairman May be Sacrificed
Atiku Abubakar presidential candidate of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), seems to have chosen reality over pride, believed to have stood in his way to reaching a truce with Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike over the issues relating to the 2023 presidential election.
The former Vice President, would be meeting with the governor in a matter of hours this Thursday, to counter a move by his All Progressives Congress (APC) counterpart, Asiwaju Ahmed Bola Tinubu to recruit Wike into his fold.
Not only is Wike believed to possess deep pocket, his seeming vice hold over some key players in the South East and South South, PDP’s greatest stronghold, is said to have convinced the former VP to mellow down from his initial high horse to seek a rapprochement.
Wike’s meeting with Tinubu, was said to have sent serious jitters to Atiku’s camp and prompted him to move, having realised what it would mean to lose the governor and his strong base in the two zones, where some governors of the party, have stayed glued to him since the rift.
Reports, which say the former VP, is travelling to London from Paris where he would be holding talks with the governor, quotes a source as saying: “The PDP presidential candidate headed for London today after arriving Paris yesterday. He is billed to meet with Wike tomorrow in an attempt to resolve the issues between them.”
It is yet to ascertain how it would turn out, but Wike has continued to insist that the ouster of the National Chairman of the PDP, Iyorchia Ayu, is the irreducible minimum for peace and for him to support the campaign and analysts believe that the former Senate President, might be sacrificed in the end if it came to that.
Aside the role Ayu was said to have played in supporting Atiku to win the PDP presidential ticket, which was seen as unacceptable as he was supposed to be unbiased as a party chairman, for which Wike and others have gone after him, his camp are also rejected a situation where virtually all the key offices of party would be held by the North.
Wike had added the behaviour of Atiku’s associates such as former Governor of Jigawa State, Sule Lamido, his counterpart in Niger, Babangida Aliyu, and the recruitment of Uche Secondus, former PDP National Chairman into the fold fighting him as part of his grouse.
Lamido who has never hidden his aversion to Atiku pandering towards appeasing the governor, was no less virulent on Tuesday, when he dismissed the supposed influence of the governor.
As a guest of Politics Today on Channels Television, Lamido all but dismissed him as non-issue, saying: “Though I would have loved we discuss issues and not a person. How can somebody, who will soon become an ex-governor like me, claim to be able to determine Rivers’ votes?
“Wike is an individual, I don’t think because he is a governor there he has control and monopoly over the peoples of Rivers. He hasn’t got it. Rivers people are also PDP in their own right. They were there in 1999 when he joined. They were there when he was council chairman.
“Therefore, because he’s a governor, he now thinks he is their emperor, it can’t work. There is a Wike in every part of Nigeria who is a governor. Leave Wike alone. He has the right to do whatever he wants. He can give order to people in Rivers who are enslaved to him. But right now if you go to Rivers, they are contesting for the governorship seat there, it was Wike who imposed the current candidate and nobody questioned that.
“The Rivers people have been there even before him. They were there in 1999, 2003, 2007 and 2011. So, it will not be correct for anybody to claim such influence on the voters. I was once a governor. I can tell you, once Wike leaves office, he will be an ordinary person like me.”
Source: Whilwind
