A former presidential aspirant, Dr Nwachukwu Anakwenze, on Saturday condemned the Peoples Democratic Party for producing its presidential candidate from the North.
According to him, the Ndigbo of the South-East within the Peoples Democratic Party should be aggrieved more than Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers State and any other political block within the party in the Southern region.
He said the PDP had not been fair to the South-East, adding that the National Chairman of the party, Dr. Iyorchia Ayu, should save the party at this critical time by stepping aside from office.
Anakwenze, a United States-based surgeon, said Ayu should make the sacrifice if that would be the only condition to prevent disintegration in PDP.
He spoke in a statement by the Director General of his campaign organization, Eric Oluwole, obtained by journalists on Saturday.
While describing Ayu as an eminent elder statesman of no mean status, he observed that there was no sacrifice too big to make in the overall interest of the party and the country.
Anakwenze said that the aggrieved governor of Rivers State, Nyesom Wike, who is insisting on Ayu’s resignation for a Southerner to take over to ensure balance, has his own valid points on which he could not be faulted.
He said: “I could remember during my visit to Ayu and other National Working Committee members during my campaign period. He showed me love and advised me as a good leader and I regarded him so much. Ayu noted for his patriotic zeal in the nation’s political circles, will not want the house he helped to build to collapse before his own eyes a few days away from a resounding victory for the PDP in the February 25, 2023, presidential election.
“At this point, Ndigbo within the PDP are supposed to be more aggrieved than Wike. What we were pleading for then within the party is zoning. That was why I contested along with my brothers including Sam Ohuabunwa, Pius Anyim, Peter Obi and two others.
“We can’t blame Wike. He is right in what he is fighting for – balance and justice for the South and for the North as well. It should be recalled that Obi, in frustration, left the party for the Labour Party because he believed that Ndigbo cannot be President on the platform of the PDP with the conditions prevailing now. But I choose to still remain in the party because of the interest I have in the party.
“Therefore, if Southern PDP stakeholders are calling Ayu to resign as solution to the crisis within the party, I think I have to appeal to him as a leader of our party, who has a good record, to do so, because of the overall interest and future of the party; and I know that he is going to be an hero if he does so.”