Wike: Atiku, PDP Put Presidential Campaigns On Hold

• Timetable adjusted for convenience – Spokesman
• Don’t ignore Wike, others – Nnamani warns PDP

BY EDMOND ODOK AND ONYEKACHUKWU IBEZIM – Determined to put its house in order for the 2023 general elections, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has temporarily suspended the presidential campaign to enable it to resolve the rift between the party’s standard bearer, Atiku Abubakar and the Governor Nyesom Wike-led group.

Strong indications emerged on Wednesday that the country’s main opposition party, after reviewing its official campaign flag-off in Uyo, the Akwa Ibom State capital, decided to reschedule the itinerary of its presidential campaign rallies covering Kebbi and Zamfara states.

The Governor Nyesom Wike’s camp comprising Seyi Makinde of Oyo State, Samuel Ortom of Benue State, Ikpeazu Okezie of Abia State, and Ifeanyi Uguanya of Enugu State was conspicuously missing in action at the Nest of Champions Stadium where Atiku and the PDP flagged off the campaigns on Monday.

Competent insiders said the rallies, earlier scheduled to hold on Wednesday 12 and Thursday 13, 2022 respectively were put off indefinitely at the request of former Vice President Atiku who has already picked new mediators to engage the Rivers State Chief Executive and his group.

In what the insiders described as fresh moves by the Wazirin Adamawa to calm frayed nerves in the Wike’s camp and get the members on board the PDP campaign train, the former Senate President, David Mark; former Governor of Rivers State, Peter Odili, and former Governor of Delta State, James Ibori, are the chosen ones to handle the new peace process.

“So, suspending the campaign temporarily is to give the new mediators the opportunity to carry out the assignment of ensuring that the group, which has so far shunned all entreaties to back down on their demand for the resignation of the National Chairman, Dr Iyorchia Ayu, is pacified with a concrete deal”, one of the sources close to Atiku said.

According to the source, having carried out their threat of not participating in the campaign flag-off in Uyo, and not knowing what they have up their sleeves next, the PDP flag bearer personally requested the Party to suspend the rallies for the time being and re-engage the aggrieved party men on the best way forward.

This is as the embattled National Chairman, Senator Ayu, said on Monday that the party’s train had moved but slowly to wait for those who might be joining them in the campaign.

In enlisting the new peace-building and mediation team, it was gathered that the PDP flag bearer, conscious of the devastating effects the 2015 crisis had on the party and its electoral chances has continued to urge caution in handling the current rift given the value-addition of the group going into next year’s polls.

However, reports quoted one of the spokespersons of the PDP Presidential Campaign Council, Charles Aniagwu, as denying that the campaign was suspended, explaining that it was rather an issue of the timetable being adjusted for the rallies to fully resume next Monday.

According to him; “There are minor repositioning of our campaign. We are going to be in Kaduna on Monday. So, it is not a suspension. There are some other little things that will still be going on; that we are doing.

“The presidential candidate is engaged in some consultations, here and there, which of course is an ongoing thing.”

Meanwhile, in reaction to current developments within the party, former governor of Enugu State Chimaroke Nnamani, has faulted the PDP’s decision to ignore the five aggrieved governors as the presidential campaigns commenced for the 2023 elections.

Nnamani said in a signed statement that the PDP leadership should do more in a give-and-take manner to carry the aggrieved party faithful along and warned against moves by some people to erect parallel structures in the five governors’ states.

Titled “2023 PDP Presidential Campaigns: Ignoring Five Governors, Discouraging”, Nnamani, who is the Senator representing Enugu East senatorial District in the National Assembly, said; “Today, I go on record in total condemnation of the treatment of the five governors mostly from the southern states within the PDP. The governors are our leaders and their humiliation rubs off on all of us.”

While recalling that State governors were not treated with ignominy during his days, the Senator maintained that; “politics is local and the folks from these affected states parading with the PDP leadership will not deliver their polling booths without the governors.”

“Without the involvement of the governors that are our leaders, these mere cheerleaders and feel-good political operatives cannot deliver. They can drag themselves from their home states to Abuja. Some are clearly Abuja permanent residents. They dress the meetings and colour the rallies, but that is what it is, political colour dressing”, he warned