Tambuwal: PDP Campaign Not Suspended, People Just Trying to Throw Spanner in the Works
*South-south governors set up panel of four to meet Rivers colleague
*Wike insists refusal to give up party chairmanship to south is recipe for crisis
*We don’t want to be short-changed again, Ayu declares
*Nigerians want a country that works, Atiku campaign maintains
Chuks Okocha in Abuja, Okon Bassey in Uyo and Blessing Ibunge in Port Harcourt
Director General of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Presidential Campaign Council and Governor of Sokoto State, Aminu Tambuwal, yesterday, denied reports that the presidential candidate of the party, Atiku Abubakar, had suspended his campaign to appease the aggrieved Rivers State Governor Nyesom Wike and allies.
Tambuwal, who spoke with a degree of authority, said the reports were the handiwork of mischief-makers determined to throw a spanner in the works by trying to dampen the interest of PDP members.
The campaign council Director General’s comments came as four PDP governors in the South-south were appointed to appeal to Wike to support Atiku in next year’s election.
The governors were Udom Emmanuel (Akwa Ibom), Douye Diri (Bayelsa), Ifeanyi Okowa (Delta), and Godwin Obaseki (Edo).
But Wike insisted that the refusal of PDP leaders to cede the national chairmanship of the party to the south was recipe for crisis.
In a related development, the national chairman of PDP, Dr. Iyorchia Ayu, yesterday, cautioned the federal government under the All Progressives Congress (APC) against compromising the integrity of the 2023 general election. Ayu said the main opposition party did not want to be short-changed again.
That was as the Atiku-Okowa Presidential Campaign Council said Nigerians were not interested in intra-party wrangling but in how to get the country working again.
Some reports had claimed that the suspension of the PDP campaign was to give room for a special intervention by former Senate President David Mark; former governor of Rivers State, Dr. Peter Odili; and his Delta State counterpart, James Ibori. The three men were, allegedly, selected to try to pacify Wike and his associates, and persuade them to participate in the PDP presidential campaign.
But speaking with newsmen, Tambuwal said, “We had a very impressive outing in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State, on the 10th of this month by launching and flagging off our campaign for Atiku/Okowa 2023 under the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
“I was amazed and taken aback last night, when I saw on the social media and on very many platforms that we’ve called off our campaign. That is far from the truth. In fact, it is fake news. Our campaign is continuing, by the grace of God, on Monday. And we hope we are able to convince Nigerians to vote for Atiku/Okowa come February 2023.”
The Sokoto State governor assured that the campaign team would replicate the kind of scenario it had in Akwa Ibom, where thousands of party supporters turned up for the kick off of the presidential rally.
According to Tambuwal, “People are looking forward to our coming to states, capitals and villages because PDP is the party to beat in 2023. Other parties are afraid, because they have not started (their campaigns). None of them has composed their campaign councils, not to even talk of starting. They are trying to throw a spanner in the works.
“They will not succeed. It is one of those shenanigans, when you see a party doing well and its candidate is better than yours. What you begin to do is to cause mischief. It is not going to work.
“We’ll run our campaign, as I said before, it is going to be issue-based. We believe there are sufficient problems bedevilling our country. I believe in the candidature of Atiku and Okowa. I also believe that when we get there, we shall do better for Nigeria.”
Meanwhile, the move by the South-south governors to appeal to Wike to sheathe his sword was contained in a communiqué from a meeting of the governors’ forum hosted in Uyo by Emmanuel.
Tambuwal was there at the meeting of the four South-south governors.
Others at the meeting were the past governors of Cross River, Liyel Imoke; Edo State, Lucky Igbinedion; Rivers State, Celestine Omehia; immediate past national chairman of PDP, Uche Secondus; serving and past members of the National Assembly; serving and past members of state assemblies.
The communique signed by PDP’s vice-presidential candidate and Governor of Delta State, Dr. Ifeanyi Okowa, read, “The meeting strongly urged the four PDP governors within South-south zone that took part in the meeting to do everything necessary within their powers to persuade their brother governors, especially, Governor Nyesom Wike, to review their position and join hands with the party to rescue, rebuild and reunite the country in the interest of the suffering Nigerians.
“The meeting formally congratulated HE, Atiku Abubakar for his emergence as the party Presidential Candidate and thanked the party leadership for the nomination of one of the great sons of the Zone, Ifeanyi Okowa, Governor of Delta State, as the presidential running mate.
“The meeting underscored the need for unity and urged all members of the party within the South-south zone to make all necessary sacrifices, both individually and collectively, to ensure the victory of the party in all of the elections in 2023, especially, to save the country from the precipice and brinks of total collapse culminating from the clueless, incompetent and ineptitude APC’s administration in the country.
“The meeting reviewed recent events in our party, the PDP, and in the country, especially, the dwindling fortunes of the country in the areas of insecurity, economy, unemployment, poverty, inflation, corruption, currency devaluation.”
The South-south PDP leaders and stakeholders also praised the zone for remaining a stronghold of the party since 1999, even as they expressed satisfaction with the performance of the zone. They urged the zone to do everything democratically necessary to sustain that status and called on members of the party within the Zone to return to their constituencies to rigorously campaign for the party.
The meeting underscored the need for unity and urged all members of the party within the zone to make all necessary sacrifices both individually and collectively to ensure the victory of the party in all of the elections in 2023.
Winning the 2023 elections, the party said, would save the country from the precipice and brinks of total collapse, culminating from the alleged clueless, incompetent and ineptitude of the APC administration in the country.
They also frowned on the dwindling fortunes of the country in the areas of security, economy, employment, poverty, inflation, corruption and currency devaluation.
Wike: Not ceding PDP Chair to South is Recipe for Crisis
Rivers State Governor Nyesom Wike warned that the refusal of the PDP leadership to cede the national chairman position to the south was a recipe for crisis.
Wike stressed that his efforts to achieve amicable resolution of the crisis rocking the PDP had been frustrated by rent seekers. He declared that nobody could convince him to change his stance that the PDP should yield its national chairman position to southern Nigeria.
Wike spoke when he hosted Cross River State PDP governorship, senatorial, House of Representatives, House of Assembly candidates and PDP local government party chairmen at his private residence in Rumueprikom, Obio/Akpor, Wednesday night.
At the meeting attended by the party’s South-south National Vice Chairman, Chief Dan Orbih, Wike explained that the seemingly intractable crisis in the party, had lingered because some vested interests, whom he described as “hyenas and rent seekers,” had remained obstinate and averse to justice, fairness and equity in the party.
The Rivers State governor stated, “We have finished presidential primaries, we have a presidential candidate. Is Wike saying, remove presidential candidate? Is Wike saying, remove vice presidential candidate? So, what are you begging me for? All I am saying, and I will continue to say is that you have taken president, give us (national) chairman.
“Nobody wants to speak the truth. If I am saying remove the presidential candidate, if I am saying remove the vice presidential candidate, then, you will say why is he doing this?”
He maintained that he could not be convinced to support the current status quo, where the PDP presidential candidate, national chairman and the Director General of the presidential campaign council were all from the north.
He said, “If the presidential candidate comes from the north, he will resign, which means he has had this in mind. Now, the thing has come to reality, now resign, no. And people are saying go and talk to Wike.
“I’ve accepted the presidential candidate, I have accepted the vice presidential candidate, what’s the problem again? You, fulfil your part. Let the south have something, that is all I’m preaching. You cannot have presidential candidate, national chairman, director general of the campaign.”
The governor further explained that it was hypocritical for some people in the PDP to criticise Muslim/Muslim ticket, while supporting that a particular region of the country should retain the presidency for another eight years.
He insisted that for the sake of holistic peace, PDP should adhere to the tenets of its constitution, which explicitly recommends that when a presidential candidate emerges from the north, the national chairman should be from the south, noting that the clamour for the chairman of the PDP to be zoned to the south would persist until justice, fairness and equity prevail in the PDP.
Wike stated, “This is the period that power game is being played. If you don’t have it now, forget it. If anybody tells you, let (Iyorchia) Ayu resign after election is conducted, then, you are a foolish person. This is the time decision is being made. This is the time the presidential candidate, national chairman and the leader of campaign will sit, when election is won in February, before the president is sworn in, decisions would have been made.”
Thanking the Cross River PDP delegates for the support given to him during the presidential primary, Wike said the visit would spur him to continue to support the party in the ahead of the 2023 general elections.
Earlier, Cross River PDP governorship candidate, Senator Sandy Onor, who led the delegation, said Wike was a trailblazer for justice, fairness and equity, and stressing that no living person in the contemporary history of the PDP has made more sacrifice for the party than governor Wike.
The senator representing Cross River north, Senator Jarigbe Agom Jarigbe, also noted that without Wike’s support, PDP would have been extinct in the state.
On his part, the Cross River State PDP chairman, Venatius Ikem, thanked Wike for his unrelenting support to the party.
Ayu: We Don’t Want to Be Short-changed Again
National Chairman of PDP, Dr. Iyorchia Ayu, counselled the APC-led federal government against compromising the integrity of the 2023 general election, declaring that the nation’s major opposition party doesnot want to be short-changed again.
Ayu, therefore, called on the European Union to send a high-level and large-size observer mission to Nigeria to monitor the 2023 elections, especially, given that Nigeria was a v populous country with large landmass.
Ayu spoke while receiving the European Union Election Exploratory Mission to Nigeria, led by Mrs. Mette Bakken, at the PDP national headquarters.
Ayu said, “We are prepared as a party to do the needful as far as the 2023 general election is concerned. But we are worried about the tendency and capacity of the state to manipulate the critical technologies to our disadvantage. We need to pay close attention so that we are not short-changed again.
“There are security challenges in some states, I think six or so states. We hope government will stamp out the insecurity there early enough for elections to be held there with transparent outcomes. We will no longer accept questionable harvests of votes from inaccessible areas.
“In the past, those were areas where the ruling APC did what they love doing best: bringing votes that subverted the will of the people. Even though we are going to police our votes, it’s important that the EU sends a large number of observers ahead of the elections.
“We need a large EU Observer Mission here. We don’t want token missions. This is because Nigeria is such a big country, with some states bigger than some EU member-states. And we need, among the observers, people with technical capacities too. Election-observation has shifted from manual to technology. You need to keep talking to government and critical stakeholders so that the APC does not subvert the democratic will.
“We appreciate the efforts of the EU and thank the Observer Missions for their continued interest in the democratisation process in Nigeria, which is close to 25 years. We want the world to know that what is happening in Nigeria is democratic, transparent and credible.”
Speaking earlier, leader of the Mission, Bakken said the EU Mission was in Nigeria to interface with relevant government bodies, non-governmental organisations (NGOs); and, in line with the EU Methodology, look at the possibility of deploying EU Observer Mission for the scheduled 2023 general elections.
Aside Bakken, who is of the Democracy and Electoral Observation Division, (European Action External Service), other members of the EU delegation included Frederick Schumman and Kairi Kasmann, both of the European Commission Foreign Policy Instrument. Members of the Exploratory Mission, who arrived Nigeria on October 10 will be on ground till October 25.
Members of the PDP National Working Committee (NWC) in attendance were the National Secretary, Senator Samuel Anyanwu; the National Publicity Secretary, Hon. Debo Ologunagba; National Treasurer, Alh. Ahmed Yayari Mohammed; and National Auditor, Chief Okechukwu Daniel.
Nigerians Want a Country That Works, Says Atiku Campaign
One of the spokespersons of the Atiku-Okowa Presidential Campaign Council, Mr Charles Aniagwu, said Nigerians were not interested in the wrangling within any political party but how to get the country back to progress.
Aniagwu, who said this while speaking on “Focus Nigeria”, an AIT programme, on Wednesday, added that Nigerians were tired of the over seven years maladministration of the APC-led federal government.
He said Atiku and Okowa were committed in their quest to rescue, reset and rebuild Nigeria for the good of all citizens.
The PDP campaign spokesman added that there was no crisis in the PDP but plurality of opinions among members, which was guaranteed in every democratic governance.
He said, “As a party, we are looking up to our leader Atiku Abubakar to unite us as party and as a nation. Atiku’s quest to unite Nigerians is not just because of the votes but because it is an essential ingredient of what we want to do to solve the myriads of challenges facing the nation.”
Aniagwu, who is also Delta State Commissioner for Information, said the PDP was different from APC, which had no regards for its members with dissenting views.
He stated, “You will recall how they were calling former Speaker Yakubu Dogara and former SGF, Babachir Lawal, names for disagreeing with the party over same faith ticket. Those, who disagreed with us in the PDP we granted them their democratic rights to express their opinion and we didn’t go ahead to cast aspersions on them.
“As a party we have acknowledged their concerns, which is why Chairman of the party’s Board of Trustees, had to step down and we are appealing to them to allow us go into the elections as a united party and we will come back to resolve all the issues raised after winning the election by the grace of God and the help of Nigerians.
“Atiku is determined to move together with all stakeholders of the party and Nigerians in general, because in unity we can resolve all the challenges facing us as a people.”
Aniagwu commended Emmanuel and other stakeholders of the party for the massive mobilisation at the party’s campaign flag-off at Uyo. He said the outing signposted the fact that the PDP meant business in its quest to rebuild the country and urged Nigerians to key into the rescue mission agenda for the good of the nation.
