Ayu no longer enjoy confidence of party members – Group

Feelers emerging from the the National Working Committee, NWC and National Caucus meetings of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) are enough indications that National Chairman, Iyorchia Ayu, no longer enjoys the confidence of party members, The Nigerian Agenda for Inclusion, TNAI, has said.

The Nigerian Agenda for Inclusion in a statement on Thursday in Abuja questioned Ayu’s believe in the party’s history and its philosophy of inclusion, spread and fairness, noting that his conduct is inconsistent with the party’s founding fathers.

TNAI in the statement signed by Alexander Obisesan, noted that “the reason Chairman-Ayu committed to resignation should the Presidential Candidate emerge from the North was because of the established norms and conventions that find anchor in the principle of rotation and inclusion.

“The reason Vice President Atiku Abubakar and others left the PDP before the 2015 elections were because of the perceived breach in the rotation of power arrangement that led to the party’s defeat.

“It is therefore self-serving and myopic for anyone to advise the party to violate a well-known and settled arrangement between the north and south that forbids the Presidential candidate and the national chairman to come from the same region.

“It is therefore unfounded and deceptive to say that five months to the 2023 elections is too short for the party to embark on a simple re-arrangement of the NWC to guarantee the inclusion of the South and success at the poll.

“The emerging arrogance and grandstanding in some quarters that the North has aligned towards the PDP and therefore the Southwest has become inconsequential may be the party’s undoing for the third time.

“Every time the PDP has lost between 2015 and 2019, it has relegated the Southwest in the scheme of things, and it is in the interest of the party to rise above manipulated pre-election polls that tend to corner the Presidental candidate to spend money and move on with the campaign.

“A party with 13 governors and in which about five are in dispute is a non-starter ahead of the 2023 elections, regardless of sentiment and grandstanding and also not when competing against a party like the APC.

“Nigerians are carefully watching the PDP whether it is a party that can guarantee fairness and it is this kind of shortchanging of the south in the PDP arrangement will make the people rethink,” the statement added

Vanguard