By Aare Abiodun Oluwarotimi, De Oracle
There have been calls from several quarters that the national chairman of the People’s Democratic Party, Dr. Iyorchia Ayu, should resign following the emergence of Alhaji Abubakar Atiku a fellow Northern man, as the presidential candidate of the Nigeria’s major opposition party.
Recall that Ayu had at the inception of his administration as the national chairman of the PDP promised to resign his position if a fellow Northerner emerged as the party’s presidential candidate but what many people fail to understand is that the former Senate president made the promise because of the general belief then that both APC and PDP would zone their presidential tickets to the SOUTH.
Did Ayu make any mistake by making that promise? Capital NO because left to him, the PDP presidential ticket would go to the SOUTH. That was his agitation and that was the reason he set up a Zoning Committee led by another brilliant and calculative Northern man, Governor Samuel Ortom of Benue state to work on the zoning of the PDP presidential ticket.
The PDP Zoning Committee led by Governor Samuel Ortom did a fantastic work but later realized that zoning the ticket to a particular Zone would cause a serious crisis in the party, and as a result of that, the ticket was left open to all the six geo-political zones in the country. Kudos to Governor Ortom for the wisdom he applied to save the PDP’s boat from capsizing.
Leaving the ticket open gave room for Atiku to contest, and that automatically canceled Ayu’s promise to relinquish his position as a price for the emergence of a Northern candidate.
Calls for Ayu’s resignation would have been very effective if the ticket was zoned to the SOUTH, and Atiku still contested despite the zoning and won like he did on Saturday night.
Now that the ticket wasn’t zoned to any particular Zone, there will be no reason for Ayu to resign as being agitated for by some people.
Yes, a Southwestern vice president? I still dey come.
