The Governor of Benue State, Samuel Ortom, has said that the National Chairman of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Senator Iyorchia Ayu, has no other choice than to resign if he cannot appease aggrieved members of the party insisting on his resigation.
Ortom said that he has not personally demanded Ayu’s resignation as they are from the same state but the calls for his resignation could not be ignored.
Recall that Ortom belongs to a group of five PDP governors called the G-5 that have maintained that the National Chairman must quit the position primarily because the party’s presidential candidate and national chairman could not emerge from the same region of the country.
Other members of the group are Nyesom Wike of Rivers State, Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi of Enugu State, Seyi Makinde of Oyo State and Okezie Ikpeazu of Abia State.
The group also includes some frontline party leaders and former governors.
Despite the group’s insistence, Ayu has remained dogged, stressing that he would serve out his four-year term.
Speaking during the weekend, Ortom noted that Ayu had given his word to party leaders that he would resign should the presidential candidate of northern extraction emerge from the national convention of the party.
He said Ayu must prove he is a man of integrity by keeping to his word or appeasing those insisting on his resignation.
Ortom said, “When a child defecates on your lap, you do not cut off the leg, you clean it up or wash it off and move on. The issue is that the PDP leadership has failed. But for me, I have not called for the removal of the National Chairman because he comes from where I come from. But I have said that the leadership including the National Chairman have failed in solving the problem and I have advised them adequately.
“When members of the Board of Trustees came to me I told them what they needed to do and I also told the National Chairman what he needed to do. I cannot go to the extreme level of calling for his removal but I call on him to do the right thing, to do the needful which has not been done, which is wrong.
“That is why I keep saying that the party has not been able to deploy its internal conflict resolution mechanism to solve this problem. If they do it we can all flow and work together, but sidelining people and thinking that you are there and nothing can stop you, is what is creating problems.
“So for me, there is still time, the party can work it out. I am in the G‐5 but because the Chairman is from my state I decided to keep quiet I have advised him on what to do. He should be happy that I am in the G-5 which Governor Wike is the leader. He should be happy that I get information from there and give it to him.
“If he takes my advice fine, but if he doesn’t that’s fine too the right thing has to be done to give all comfort because whatever is the demand of Wike today nobody can blame him. The Chairman himself promised that he would resign if a Northern presidential candidate emerged; has a northern candidate not emerged?
“So why is he not coming out? And I have offered two things, it’s either you resign or plead and beg the people why you should continue as National Chairman because you said it yourself, nobody compelled you.
“The National Chairman told the whole world that he would resign if a northern candidate emerged and today a northern candidate has emerged. So the question I am asking is where is your integrity if you don’t resign?
“But there are many ways of doing it, if you plead, if you beg, if you seek for the understanding of the people to accept you the way you are so that we run towards election it is still okay. But the onus is on you to convince them and not to say that you have a four-year tenure. Who compelled you to say that you will resign if the presidential candidate comes from the north? I chose to keep quiet but that does not mean I am against what my colleagues are saying.”