LAGOS, Nigeria (VOICE OF NAIJA) – The Board of Trustees (BoT) of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has asked Iyorchia Ayu, the National Chairman of the party, to resign his position after the 2023 general elections.
This is part of the resolutions of the PDP BoT reached on Friday, at a meeting in Abuja.
Some members of the party have been calling for Ayu’s resignation because the national chairman and the party’s presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, cannot be from the same region. The duo are both Northerners.
However, some members of the party had rejected the call for Ayu to resign, saying the national chairman can only resign after the presidential election in February if Abubakar wins.
The BoT, led by Adolphus Wabara, had recently embarked on “reconciliatory visits” to aggrieved members of the party, especially those in the camp of Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike.
Reading the communiqué issued after the meeting on Friday, Wabara said: “The BoT called on all party leaders and persons close to them to desist forthwith from making further inflammatory remarks or press interviews.”
He noted further, that the BoT has asked the chairman of the PDP governors’ forum to convene a meeting of the forum without further delay.
According to him, all leaders of the party have been asked to “match words with action and where commitments are made, to unconditionally fulfil same.”
He also said the BoT “urged the national chairman as an eminent leader, to give a firm assurance that he will resign his position after the 2023 election.
“In the same vein, the BoT chairman has been authorised to offer apologies on behalf of all members who feel maligned or aggrieved by the public statements made by its members nationwide that have sharpened the current division in the party.
“The BoT also called on the presidential candidate to review its membership of the presidential campaign council, and other advisory appointments to make it all-inclusive.”
Wabara added that the BoT will refer some of the resolutions and recommendations to the party’s national executive committee (NEC) for further action.