Less than 24 hours after elder statesman and leader of Pan-Niger Delta Forum (PANDEF), Chief Edwin Kagboro Clark, called on Senator Iyorchia Ayu to resign as National Chairman of the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), a chieftain of the party has also said that he looks forward to the party boss to do the needful.
Clark, had in a statement he issued on Tuesday, called for the immediate resignation of Ayu from his position following what he termed as the outrageous financial inducements of party delegates and cynical dollarization of the electoral process that produced the PDP presidential candidate last weekend in Abuja.
The 1st Republic Minister said that was a strong warning of more likely deleterious outcomes of the 2023 general elections, mainly the presidential, and others elections both at the states and national levels.
He said most disturbing was what happened at the Special National Convention of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), in Abuja, on Saturday, May 28.
“I was alarmed by the outrageous and Machiavelli manner in which Alhaji Aminu Tambuwal, Governor of Sokoto State, was so apparently “arranged” to announce his withdrawal from the contest, at the last minute; his speech changed the mood of the event.
“That was done in order to foist another Northerner as the party’s flag bearer, having regard to the fact that Governor Aminu Tambuwal was the only aspirant from the whole of the North West, which had about 192 delegates at the convention”, Clarke lamented.
For presiding over such monumental skewed process and for the PDP not taking the concern of the South Easterners and entire Southern Nigeria people into consideration by picking another Northner to succeed President Muhammadu Buhari in 2023, Ayu should resign.
Meanwhile, Clarke’s position has received support from a chieftain of PDP who also said Ayu will not remain the party’s National Chairman because of the emergence of Alhaji Abubakar Atiku as the PDP flagbearer.
Speaking on Channels Television breakfast programme Sunrise Daily on Wednesday, Alhaji Sani Umar, former Spokesman, Atiku Presidential Campaign Council, said he is expecting Ayu to resign from his position.
Said he: “Remember, Ayu made the pledge himself that if a Northern extraction emerges as a presidential candidate of PDP in the 2023 Presidential Election he will resign. Again, this has been the rule in PDP since the days of Chief Solomon Lar in 1999”.
Umar however said he does not know at what point Ayu should resign, adding that it is now left to be seen whether the PDP Chairman will throw in the towel before or after the 2023 General Elections.
