Atiku’s Running Mate: PDP Leaders Make Move To Stop Plans To Remove Ayu As Party Chairman

Reports indicating that some leaders of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) are making moves to stop the plans of some aggrieved members of the party who intend to remove the party’s national chairman, Senator Iyorchia Ayu, from office ahead of the 2023 general elections have emerged.

A source informed Daily independent that the plan to remove Ayu is being led by Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike.

There have been speculations that the selection of Delta State Governor Ifeanyi Okowa as Atiku Abubakar’s running mate despite Wike’s emergence as the candidate of a 17-member advisory committee has led to a distinct division among the Governors in the party.

This was further brought to the fore when only two out of the 13 Governors of the party were present at the inauguration of the party’s campaign council for the Osun State governorship election, though the party later clarified they sent in apologies about their absence ahead of the programme.

Shedding more light on the alleged ongoing rift in the party, the source told the publication that the aggrieved members are insisting that the party’s presidential candidate and the national chairman cannot come from the same region.

The source also stated there are others who claim they have evidence of funds misappropriation by Ayu.

When asked what Ayu’s crime was, he said as a long-standing associate of Atiku, Wike and his loyalists believe that he has a hand in the emergence of Okowa as the running mate.

His words: “The plot to remove the national chairman is real. He has been secretly meeting with some prominent personalities to avert it. Also, just like the governors are divided, the National Working Committee of the party are also divided as those sympathetic to Wike are unhappy with Ayu and they want him out.

“The same pattern they used in removing Secondus from office is also being adopted. Having realised that he has refused to resign after Atiku emerged, they will accuse him of misappropriation while those against him in the NWC will pass a vote of no confidence in him. If they are in the majority and they get the support of most of the governors, I don’t see how he will survive it.

“However, those plotting his removal will have a hard time because unlike in Secondus case when the governors were on the same page, they are not united this time around as some of the governors and party leaders have insisted that Ayu will lead the party to the 2023 general elections”.