The crisis rocking the Peoples Democratic party, PDP, may not be ending anytime soon as reconciliatory efforts have not yielded much progress.
POLITICS NIGERIA has gathered that the National Chairman of the Party, Iyorchia Ayu has refused to have a private meeting with the Governor of Rivers state, Nyesom Wike, in order to resolve the ongoing crisis in the party.
It can be recalled that the Presidential Candidate of the party, Atiku Abubakar and Wike have been at loggerheads ever since the party’s presidential primaries a few months back.
Wike lost the primaries after another presidential candidate, Aminu Tambuwal stepped down for Atiku, a move that seriously miffed the Rivers politician.
Shortly after, a committee setup by the party to select a running mate its Presidential Candidate recommended Wike but it was jettisoned as Ayu and Atiku opted for Delta State Governor, Ifeanyi Okowa.
Since then, Wike has been on the offensive and has threatened no to support Atiku in the fast-approaching 2023 Presidential elections. However, the National working committee of the party move to reconcile both camps and chart a path to peace and harmony.
Last week, Wike’s camp insisted that Ayu must be removed as Chairman before reconciliatory talks can be held. The committee then suggested that Ayu have a private meeting with Wike in Port-harcourt as a major step to bring peace but the Benue born Senator refused.
The NWC in their meeting last Thursday told Ayu that they would accompany him to Port Harcourt if he was not willing to go alone. According to one of the NWC members who spoke on condition of anonymity, the NWC members who feared that the crisis is becoming personal asked the national chairman to take the path of a leader to see Wike and resolve the crisis which is becoming intractable.
The source further stated that the NWC members volunteered to go with Ayu to meet with the Rivers State governor as a team. He further stated that Ayu rejected the offer of going with them to see the Rivers State governor or engage him in a private audience.
According to him, Ayu ruled out any private meeting with Wike on the matter, insisting that he has four years to complete his tenure as the party’s national chairman.
It was learnt that the two camps that held the deadlocked meeting in Port Harcourt would use the weekend to
The main concern of Wike’s camp is to ensure that all the supporters of the Rivers State governor are carried along in the electioneering campaigns expected to kick off on September 29.
Meanwhile, Wike and the former National Chairman of the party, Prince Uche Secondus on Saturday engaged in a war of words over an alleged threat by the Rivers State governor to crush anyone who supports the enemies of the state.
A visibly angry Wike, who spoke at the flagging off ceremony of the construction of internal roads at Omagwa in Ikwerre Local Government Area of the state, vowed to “finish” anyone who pitches his tent with the “enemies of the state.”
According to the governor, “If anybody fights our system, we will fight the person back.
“Let me tell you what you don’t understand in politics. The moment you claim to be working with us and tomorrow you shift to our enemy, we will take every might we have; we will even leave our enemy and finish you first.
“So, all of you who are going back to Abuja to hold meetings with our enemies in the state, I am going to finish you to the last.”
“We removed a national party chairman who was not doing well. All of them were here; we all agreed; now they are going to Abuja to hold meetings with the man we removed, thinking that you will use that to fight us; we will crush them.”
But in a swift response, Secondus told Wike that he is not God who could crush anyone.
In a statement by his media aide, Ike Abonyi, the former National Chairman of the main opposition party stated that his attention “has been drawn to the haughty and disdainful threat from Governor Nyesom Wike that he will crush anybody who works with him (Secondus) in support of the PDP presidential candidate Atiku Abubakar.”
“The simple responses of Prince Secondus to the empty threat are: ‘Wike you cannot crush anybody, I cannot fight, only God can crush”.
THEIR HEADACHES. WHO CARE?