The clamour for the National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Dr. Iyorcha Ayu to quit office has continued to gather momentum.
Joining the push for Ayu to resign are former PDP National Chairman, Abubakar Baraje and the former Deputy National Chairman of the party, Chief Bode George.
Baraje Thursday justified the call for Dr. Iyorcha Ayu’s resignation as national chairman saying the agitation was not “out of place.”
He said, “We have a tradition of zoning our party offices. It is not a new thing to us that if the presidential candidate comes from the North, the chairman comes from the South.”
Citing a similar scenario in 2008, Baraje said the then national chairman, Ahmadu Ali, had to go after the elections had been conducted and won.
Baraje, who was featured on Arise TV Morning Show, said the PDP has a tradition that is well known to all the members and other Nigerians.T
The former chairman said the party had agreed earlier in the year during its National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting in Abuja that party offices should be shared between the North and the South and that whichever zone that produced the presidential candidate should not produce the chairman.
Baraje stressed that “What am I trying to say with those examples? It is to reinforce the fact that we have a tradition without people clamouring for it.
“We don’t kill the tradition of our party. We operate in accordance with our processes and I can tell you that the processes of putting things in order have started.
“It is not as a result of agitations or cries from any corner that the chairman should resign. We have a tradition and the party must keep to that tradition.
“This is a tradition of balancing, of all-inclusiveness, of carrying every member of the PDP across the board along without fear or favour.
“We have a tradition and law and we will behave in accordance with our law. We are saying that the process is to ensure that we keep the balancing in accordance with our constitution. It is a process and we can’t hurry that process beyond necessary.”
For his part, George, a former military governor of Ondo State told reporters in Lagos that the founding fathers of PDP never envisaged a time when the national chairman and presidential candidate will come from one bloc zone.
According to him, Ayu should honour his promise to resign if the presidential candidate is picked from the North.
George, a retired Naval Commodore maintained that Ayu cannot justify his continued stay in office, adding that the emergence of the chairman and flagbearer from one zone has violated the principle of inclusivity.
He also urged the main opposition party to put its house in order ahead of next year’s polls. (THE NATION)
