Fresh Pressure On Ayu To Resign As Protesters Storm PDP Secretariat

The National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, is under fresh pressure to resign following protest on Wednesday by protesters who stormed the secretariat chanting anti-Ayu slogan.

The protesters said he’s presiding over a descent to failure as crisis reigns in the party after the conduct of its primaries across the country.

This is as the Nyesom Wike camp, the Rivers State governor, insists he must step aside before the camp engages Atiku Abubakar on any meaningful discussion ahead of the official take- off of the presidential campaign of the party in September.

Atiku emerged the presidential candidate of the party in May. He went against the decision of the committee set up by the party to choose Ifeanyi Okowa, Delta State Governor, as his running mate.

That has caused ripples in the party with threats of defections from Wike and his supporters looming.

The Board of Trustees of the party will be meeting today to iron out ways to placate Wike and his associates, among whom are Jerry Gana, former Minister of Information, Ayo Fayose, former Ekiti State Governor and the current governors of Abia, Enugu, Oyo, and Benue.

His camp also boats of current senators and members of the House of Representatives, former senators and House members and former Ministers.

Before BoT could sit, protesters stormed the secretariat with placards asking the former Senate President to step aside as he had allegedly failed.

The protesters who said they were acting under the aegis of Concerned Deltans for Good Governance, said they were at the party’s office to register their displeasure over Ayu’s refusal to obey an order of the Federal High Court which sacked Rt. Hon. Sheriff Oborevwori as the PDP standard bearer in next year’s governorship election in Delta.

Recall the Federal High Court sitting in Abuja had declared Olorogun David Edevbie as the lawfully nominated and authentic candidate of the party.

In a judgement delivered by Justice Taiwo Taiwo, the court directed the PDP to forward Edevbie’s name to the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, in addition to ordering INEC to accord him the full rights and privileges due to him as the rightful candidate of the party.

The protesters said Ayu had failed to do so at the time they were at the party’s secretariat, with various inscriptions reading, “Ayu lacks integrity to push PDP to victory”, “Obey the Abuja FHC judgement”, “BoT help Delta PDP before NWC kills the party” among others.

Addressing reporters during the protest, the leader of the group, Chris Anthony, said, “There’s a burning issue in Delta state, and it’s about who is the rightful candidate of the PDP in the state.

“Everyone knows that the PDP in Delta is the majority party, but with the action of the National Chairman of the party, we are beginning to be convinced that Ayu is a mole in the party to trade the fortunes of the party to the opposition.

“We have seen Ayu not just as a mole, but also as an actor playing the script written by the opposition to actualise the emergence of an APC governor in Delta state.

“Ayu lacks the capacity to lead the PDP and so should honourably resign, because he has demonstrated gross incompetence in handling the affairs of the party. He should resign. Ayu should resign, because he cannot manage the affairs of the party well.

“We are talking about defending the democracy that thrives on the rule of law, but Ayu has willfully refused to obey a simple court judgment.”