Former Deputy National Chairman of the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Chief Bode George, has joined the leadership of the party in the Southwest to ask the national chairman, Professor Iyorcha Ayu to resign immediately “in the spirit of fairness.”
Bode George, who said he was speaking as a national leader and not on behalf of the Southwest, stressed the need for the Southwest region to be given a sense of belonging as all the key positions in the party are being occupied by northerners.
“Ayu needs to resign as chairman immediately while the Southwest gets the position in the spirit of fairness. I cannot campaign for the party in the Southwest in an atmosphere where there is no fairness. What will I tell our people?”
Bode George, who was the Director-General of the PDP Presidential Campaign in 2007, said that the PDP could pick an interim chairman from the Southwest just for the purpose of fairness.
He said that refusing to take Nigeria’s diversity into consideration would make the PDP no better than the APC, which he said is pushing a Muslim/Muslim ticket.
“NEC can appoint an acting chairman from the Southwest in order to give the region a sense of belonging. Ayu promised to leave office once the PDP produces a northern Presidential candidate. For the sake of fairness, he needs to step down immediately.
“The PDP as presently constituted does not reflect Nigeria’s diversity. The North produced the Presidential candidate, the national chairman and the BoT chairman and they want the South to accept this. Would the North have accepted this if it was the other way around?”
The Southwest arm of the PDP has recently joined the push for the resignation of the Iyorchia Ayu, arguing that with the All Progressives Congress (APC) picking its Presidential candidate from the region, in the person of Bola Tinubu, the PDP would also need an influential politician from the region to be the party’s chairman.
There are demands from the camp of Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers State for Ayu to resign as the party’s chairman.
The demand was among the conditions given by Wike who is still said to be aggrieved over Atiku’s refusal to pick him as a running mate. Already, Wike and Atiku have begun meeting with a view to ensuring that a compromise is reached before the commencement of campaigns next month.
A member of the State Working Committee in Ekiti State was reported to have said recently: “Tinubu is campaigning as the candidate of the Yoruba people. Even Sanwo-Olu said recently that all Yoruba people must see Tinubu as their personal project. The PDP needs to make a huge concession for the Southwest which has the second largest voting population after the North-West,”
