By Adesina Soyooye
Presidential Candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Atiku Abubakar, said he has done his best in trying to sort out areas of disagreement between him, the Party and the Governor of Rivers State, Nyesom Wike.
Speaking Sunday, 11th December, at a Town Hall Meeting on Channels Television, Atiku said that the opinion held by not a few members of the public that he had not met with Wike, and not tried to find a solution to the crisis was false.
Contrary to that opinion, Atiku revealed that since the crisis started, he had met, one on one, with Governor Wike five number of times.
He explained that he met with him once in London, twice in Abuja, and twice in Porthacourt.
From all indications, the meetings brought no appreciable solution to the crisis. Therefore, Atiku said he is “waiting for the other side.”
The Presidential candidate did not reveal which “other side” he is waiting for, but over the weekend, Governor Aminu Tambuwal, Governor of Sokoto State, and the Director General of the PDP Presidential Campaign Council, met with one of Wike’s staunch political allies, Samuel Ortom, in a bid to resolve the crisis.
Atiku: “I have met with Wike two times in Abuja, two times in Porthacourt and once in London, personally.”
But it does seem that after each meeting, Wike’s refrain is usually: “I go pepper them.”
Atiku distanced himself from the non-resolution of the crisis, and emphasised: “I am waiting for the other side.”
Wike is the arrow head and leader of five PDP Governors and some other stakeholders who rebelled against the leadership of the Party and its Presidential Candidate when Wike lost both the Presidential and Vice Presidential tickets to Atiku and Delta State Governor, Dr Ifeanyi Okowa, respectively.
The other Governors working with Wike are: Samuel Ortom, Benue, Okezie Ikpeazu, Abia, Seyi Makinde, Oyo, and Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi, Enugu.
They are asking for the vacation, from office, of the Party’s National Chairman, Dr Iyorchia Ayu, for a Southerner, and have vowed not to have anything to do with the National body of the PDP, or its Presidential Candidate.
Aside from blaming Ayu for Wike’s losses, they asked Ayu to keep to the agreement reached, and promise he made before the Presidential Primary, to quit office if a Northerner wins the ticket. They insist that both the National Chairman and the Candidate, cannot come from the Zone, which Wike revealed was, also, Atiku’s promise when he won the Presidential ticket of the Party.
However, Ayu has since shunned the agreement, and insists on his four-year tenure in office. He has the support of the National Executive Council of the Party, its Board of Trustees and Atiku.
Wike and his group, popular as G-5, and now, Integrity Group, have distanced themselves from the activities of the Party at the National level, and vowed to have nothing to do with the Presidential Campaign unless Ayu steps down.
For now, they are in the habit of de-marketing the Party’s Presidential Candidate, in clear anti-party activities.
The PDP seems helpless.
