By Ben Ogbemudia
Echoes of calls for the sacking of the National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Dr Iyorchia Ayu, resonated yesterday at the meeting of the party’s Board of Trustees (BoT) meeting in Abuja.

The meeting, which was held at the National Executive Council (NEC) hall at the National Secretariat, Wadata Plaza, was also boycotted by the supporters of the Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike.

A member of the BoT, who spoke to our reporter on the condition of anonymity, said there was a little disagreement on the way forward in handling the Atiku Abubakar versus Wike crisis, and especially the call by the Rivers State governor’s men for Ayu to step aside.

“See, my dear brother, we need to handle this whole issue with care, otherwise, we are toying with the 2023 elections. We need to tell ourselves the truth. Presidential candidate, North, BoT Chairman, North, and National Chairman of the party, North. We should face reality.

“Now, the above issues were raised, some are saying Wike is just one man, they have forgotten that he is a governor of a state, a powerful one for that matter. Based on some of these submissions, a committee of the whole was set to interface with the warring factions.”

Senator Abdul Ahmed Ningi, who briefed journalists shortly after the meeting, also collaborated on what one of the members earlier told our reporter on the urgent need to set up a reconciliation meeting between Atiku and the aggrieved Wike.

“We discussed the crisis between our presidential candidate and Governor Nyesom Wike. In getting it resolved, we set up a committee of the whole to urgently interface with the two of them.

“We have set up in this meeting, a committee of the BoT to be able to interface between warring factions, particularly the acrimony that is taking place between the presidential candidate and Governor Wike, and any other conflict that is taking place in the nation within our party formation,” Ningi said.

He added, “The committee is the Committee of the Whole; that means every other BoT member is a member of the committee. I cannot tell you the grievances and the time frame.

“On Ayu stepping down, we have not even discussed any issue of anybody stepping down. We discuss what we discuss, and we discussed what I told you.

Meanwhile, calls for the resignation of Ayu took another dimension yesterday, as “Ayu must go” protesters stormed the party’s national secretariat.

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The protesters, who stormed the party national secretariat in their numbers, decried the high-handedness of the National Chairman over the court ruling in Delta State.

The protesters, which said that Ayu cannot lead the PDP to victory in 2023, alleged that the party’s national chairman is a mole in the PDP.

Recall that on July 7, 2022, a Federal High Court sitting in Abuja disqualified the party’s governorship candidate for the 2023 election, Sheriff Oborevwori.

Justice Taiwo Taiwo had agreed with the plaintiff that Oborevwori ought not to be the candidate of the PDP for allegedly supplying false and forged documents to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

The judge subsequently directed INEC and the PDP to recognise the plaintiff, David Edevbie, as the candidate.

The leadership of the party led by Ayu has so far not affected this change, the reason why the protesters stormed the national headquarters.

The protesters, with the inscriptions; ‘Ayu Lacks the Capacity to Lead PDP to Victory in 2023’; ‘Ayu Wants to Destroy PDP’; ‘Ayu is Killing Delta PDP; Ayu’s NWC is Biased; ‘PDP is Dying in Delta State’; ‘Ayu Not Wishing Delta PDP Well and other Inscriptions’, berated the PDP leader.

Under the aegis of ‘Concerned Delta for Good Governance, said, “Ayu is a mole in the PDP to trade the party to APC in Delta.”

Speaking on behalf of the group, the coordinator, Chris Anthony, said, “Ayu-led National Working Committee (NWC) failed to comply, refused to forward the name of the expected candidate of the party to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

“Ayu cannot lead. He should resign. He can’t manage the affairs of the party. He can’t obey the rule of law,” he added.

The protesters also asked that if the PDP cannot address a minor problem in a state chapter, how it can address the larger problem in the country?

Anthony also said, “We expect the leadership of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), under the watch of Ayu, to comply with the judgement that has been passed by Justice Taiwo Taiwo, on the 7th.

“They are playing games with judgement. The party is supposed to forward the name of the winner of that election based on the court order to INEC, but they have deliberately refused to do that because they are working in connivance with the Delta State governor, Okowa, as an individual.

“They have refused to comply with the court order. Funny enough, INEC officially wrote to the PDP through their legal adviser that they have received a judgement of this nature, and that they (INEC) will do the needful by complying, and they also expect the PDP to do the same, but the PDP, up to his moment, has deliberately decided to abandon what the court had said.

“We are all shouting: ‘we want to lead Nigeria’, if you cannot organise your house properly, how do you expect to address the Nigerian problem? If you simply cannot address the minor problem in Delta, then how do Nigerians trust the PDP to tackle the challenges facing the Nigerian nation on a larger scale?”

He stressed, “We are calling on the leadership of the PDP to do the needful; obey the court order, recognise David Edenbie, as the governorship candidate of the PDP as the court has so declared.

“The implication of the PDP action on the Delta issue is that they are trying to throw up the fortunes of the PDP in Delta. Everybody knows that the PDP in Delta State is the majority party, and there is no other political party in Delta State, apart from the PDP.

“But with the action of the national chairman of the party, we are beginning to be convinced of what people have been saying that Ayu is a mole in the PDP to throw up Delta State PDP to the opposition.

“We see Ayu as a mole in the PDP. He is playing the script of the APC, just to actualise the emergence of the APC governor in Delta.

“He cannot lead the PDP, and so, he should honorably resign. He has demonstrated gross incompetence in handling the affairs of the party. He should resign. Ayu should resign. He cannot manage the affairs of the PDP.”