Published
on September 24, 2022
Umar Sani, a former Senior Special Adviser on Media and Publicity to Vice President Namadi Sambo, has revealed the only three ways the National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Iyorchia Ayu, can be removed.
PDP has been witnessing a crisis since the emergence of Alhaji Atiku Abubakar as its 2023 presidential candidate.
The crisis worsened when Atiku picked Governor Ifeanyi Okowa of Delta State as his running mate for next year’s election.
Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers State has been aggrieved with PDP’s leadership over Atiku’s choice of a running mate.
Atiku ignored Wike, who came second during the PDP’s presidential primaries a few months ago, a situation tearing the party apart.
Following his action, Wike called for the resignation of Ayu.
Wike noted that the North could not produce PDP’s presidential candidate and the National Chairman.
However, speaking on Arise TV’s Morning Show on Friday, Sani said that Ayu could be removed as PDP national chairman only if he resigns or the party’s NEC passes a vote of no confidence on him or his tenure expires.
Sani said, “Ayu will have to leave if Atiku becomes the president. Ayu will leave, and somebody from the Southern extraction will now become the national chairman of the party and the new national convention will be held. As it is now, the process is so cumbersome, so long, and the timing is not right.
“We are approaching elections and there are two or three ways where somebody can be removed as a national chairman by the PDP constitution. The first is that he can resign, two is when an allegation is placed before him before the NEC and then he is found wanting and the NEC passes a vote of no confidence against him and removes him and the third is when his tenure expires.
“Now, if we have all these types of scenarios and the issue before the party is that the Wike group is asking that Ayu must go because perhaps he has made a promise, that promise is what we have been hearing. I think it is not a promise between the party and the group, it is a promise perhaps done in honour binding. Because if it is down within the party, the party would not go ahead in the last NEC and said that we have passed a vote of confidence for Ayu to continue.”
