As the seeming rift between former Vice President Atiku Abubakar and Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike, appears intractable, a former presidential aspirant on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party, Pharmacist Sam Ohuabunwa, has advised the National Chairman of the party, Sen. Iyorchia Ayu, to tow the path of honour and step aside.
This was as the PDP chieftain noted that the party will not win the 2023 presidential elections with the level of bitterness and divisions bedevilling it currently.
Ohuabunwa stated this during Channels Television's Politics Today, on Tuesday, saying the PDP needn't an external body to remind it was high time it rejigged internally to face the full-All Progressives Congress at the polls, come 2023.
The immediate past President of the Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria was responding to a question about whether Ayu should step aside as a video of him pledging to do so should a northerner emerge as Presidential Candidate made the rounds, on Tuesday.
His resignation is one of the key demands of party supporters sympathetic to the cause of the Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike, as a condition for peace to return to the party.
Ohuabnunwa said, "Politicians have been painted with all manner of brushes. One is that you don't rely on their words. Two is that they can't be trusted. Another is that they are not principled.
"But I have met Dr Iyorchia Ayu and he looks to me like a principled person. I have evidence because in my perspective he's principled and he's a man that means well ordinarily. So, I do not think we need to remind him about what he said before he was elected chairman of the PDP if he said that.
"If I'm leading a party that's about to go to war and I understand the mindset of Nigerians currently, that's inclusiveness-making sure we have a religious, ethnic and demographic balancing and carrying everybody along irrespective of tribe or Creed, then I will have to do the needful and make sacrifices. If I were the leader of the party, I didn't even need anybody to remind me of how we can change this mix.
"South said they wanted the presidency. But the party decided and allowed it to go to the North because of expediency and many of us from the South, who believe in the supremacy of the party are trying to live with that.
"Now, you created a scenario that has made the hierarchy of the party comes from a particular section of the country, from members of the Board of Trustees to others. This doesn't make sense.
"Therefore, if Sen. Ayu had made that comment, then he should follow the path of honour. And like I said, I see him as a man of honour and principle.
"But I'm even going beyond that. Assuming he said that and he's the leader of the party that has brought us to this point, he should make the sacrifices and do what is needed to be done for Nigerians to be happy with the party, and for members to be happy with the party to position it ahead of 2023.
"As the father of the party, the chairman has the onerous and detribalised duty to keep this party united and focused ahead of the 2023 presidential polls so that we can face our enemies. They are no enemies, other than the opponents in the other parties. Ayu should step aside if that's what is needed to keep the party more alive, united and much more formidable ahead of the general elections."
