Governor of Rivers state, Nyesom Wike has insisted that the National Chairmanship of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) must be zoned to the Southern region of the country for peace to reign in the party.
Wike made the assertion while speaking in a media chat with journalists on Friday.
The govenor, who alleged that the current chairman of the party, Iyorchia Ayu did everything for him not to emerge as the presidential candidate of the party, said he (Ayu) must keep to his vow to step down if the party’s presidential candidate emerges from the North.
According to him, the leadership of the party had played clever by throwing the presidential ticket open instead of being zoned.
“I believed the PDP presidency would be zoned. But, all of a sudden people begin to show how clever they are. Now they are falling back to the constitution. You cannot eat your cake and have it.
“Sacrifice must be made in order to come out of this. Let us do things right so that peace will reign. We must do the right thing. We must show Nigerians that this is where we are coming to.
“Why did we jettisoned the constitution of our party and now start talking about the rule of law. If we had followed Section 7 : 3 c we would not have ended up in this crisis. I will stay in the PDP to fight for the right. I am not a man that will see fire and run away,” he said.
Wike said the party must show that it upholds inclusivity and unity, rather than being arrogant to the calls of some of its members.
“For inclusivity so we can be sure that everybody belongs to one house. For the unity of the country. As it is today, we can not undermine this factor of marginalization. You must show that you have the capacity to bring everybody together.
“Why did they put pressure on the BOT chairman to resign, but could not put pressure on the National chairman of the party to resign?
“Instead of doing the right thing, what they are doing is name calling. Wike is this and that one. All this will not help us get anywhere. We have not even won an election, we have become so arrogant,” he said.
Wike also revealed that he was aware of the underground moves of the Delta State governor, Ifeanyi Okowa, to become the vice presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party in the 2023 elections.
According to him, “He (Atiku) was going to run with Okowa. That Okowa supported him. We were all aware. It is not that we didn’t see. Take for instance the United States of America, Biden ran and the current vice president of America, Kamala Harris, gave Biden serious problem.
“When they wanted to pick the Vice President, Biden said this woman gave me serious problem, I cannot pick this woman, but those in Biden’s camp, who meant well for him told him, ‘If you want to win this election, you must pick Kamala Harris.’ And look at the support today.
“The problem with some of our leaders is that there are so many rent-seekers around them. They (rent-seekers) have not been in power for years. So they are all looking for how to bounce back. They are people who have no value to add.”
