A former Presidential Aspirant of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Dr. Nwachukwu Anakwenze, has urged the party’s national chairman, Dr. Iyorchia Ayu, to save the party by stepping down if this will put an end to the ongoing crisis.
Anakwenze made the call in a statement in Abuja signed by the Director General of his Campaign Organisation, Comrade Eric Oluwole.
He asked the PDP chairman to make the sacrifice of resigning if that would be the only condition to prevent the party from breaking apart and losing out in 2023.
He said he believes strongly that Ayu, as an eminent elder statesman of no mean status, will not consider any sacrifice, which indeed will turn him to a national hero, too big to make in the overall interest of the PDP and Nigeria, which is in need of an urgent rescue operation.
“Besides, I could remember during my visit to him and other NWC during my Campaign period, he showed me love and advised me as a good leader and I regard him so much.”
“Ayu is noted for his patriotic zeal in the nation’s political circles, and will not want the house he helped to build to collapse before his own eyes a few days away from a resounding victory for the PDP in the February 25, 2023 Presidential Election.
“Nevertheless, he believes that the Ndigbo of the South East within the PDP should be aggrieved more than Wike and any other political block within the party in the southern region, which he said had not been fair to the South East.
“At this point, Ndigbo within the PDP are supposed to be more aggrieved than Wike. What we were pleading for then within the party is zoning. That was why I contested along with my brothers including Sam Obuabunwa, Pius Anyim, Peter Obi and two others.
“We can’t blame Wike. He is right in what he is fighting for -balance and Justice for the South as for the North as well. It should be recalled that Obi, in frustration, left the party for the Labour Party because he believed that Ndigbo cannot be president on the platform of the PDP with the conditions prevailing within now. But I choose to still remain in the party because of the interest I have in the party.
“Therefore, if Southern PDP Stakeholders are calling Ayu to resign as solution to the crisis within the party, I think I have to appeal to him as a leader of our party, who has a good record, to do so, because of the overall interest and future of the party; and I know that he is going to be a hero if he does so.”
Anakwenze noted that the most important thing is for the PDP to win the February 25 Presidential Election.
He warned that the suffering and helpless Nigerians, who have been highly expectations that a PDP President is coming to salvage the situation.
“I always believe that our leader, the former Vice President and our Presidential Candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, will find a solution to the crisis, along with our party leaders across board,” he said.
