Atiku Lends Voice on Ayu’s Resignation Call

Presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, has lent his voice to the
call for the resignation of Senator Iyorchia Ayu as the National Chairman of the party.
Atiku spoke on Wednesday when he led other party leaders in Ibadan in an interactive session with
stakeholders of the PDP. The request for the National Working Committee (NWC) of the party to be
reconstituted, he said, was not impractical, but it would need to be made contingent upon an
amendment to the party’s charter to reflect the request.
“The Peoples Democratic Party is the oldest political party in Nigeria since the return of democracy and
even before then,” he was quoted as saying in a statement by his media adviser, Paul Ibe. “It is a party
that has laid down rules and regulations.
“I have been a member of the party since it was formed, and I am still a member of the party up to the
point of what it has grown to become.”
Meanwhile, the Governor of Oyo State, Seyi Makinde, while speaking on behalf of the South-West PDP,
demanded that Ayu should step down.
In his response, the vice president said, “There is nothing any individual can do to change the outlook of
the National Working Committee of the PDP. The PDP is a party where there are laid down rules and
regulations.
“What Governor Makinde is asking for is possible only when we have amended our party’s constitution.
As things stand today, no single individual has the power to tamper with the NWC of the party. Doing so
will be illegal, and it will be against our rules in the party.”
The presidential candidate claims that if the PDP takes such arbitrary action against itself, Nigerians
won’t trust it to govern according to the principles of the rule of law.
Leaders of the PDP from the six states that make up the geopolitical zone participated in the interactive
session with the southwest stakeholders. They all agreed that the PDP should win the next year’s
general election.
Present at the interactive session were Presidential candidate Atiku Abubakar, the PDP vice presidential
candidate and Delta State Governor, Dr Ifeanyi Okowa; Governor Makinde; PDP governorship candidate
in Ogun State, Ladi Adebutu; former governor of Ekiti State, Ayo Fayose; Osun State Governor-elect,
Senator Ademola Adeleke; as well as the PDP governorship candidate in Lagos State, Olajide Adediran,
and his running mate, Funke Akindele.
Others are PDP Governors’ Forum Chairman and Sokoto State Governor, Aminu Tambuwal; former Cross
River State governor, Liyel Imoke; PDP Deputy National Chairman (North), Umar Damagum, and PDP
National Deputy Chairman (South) Ambassador Taofeek Arapaja, among others.