Yesterday’s resignation of Senator Walid Jibrin as Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Board of Trustees (BoT) and subsequent appointment of a former Senate President, Adolphus Wabara, was part of the moves to douse the festering leadership crisis in the party.
Apparently, it was in response to calls by the camp of Rivers State Governor Nyesom Wike on the PDP to address the lopsidedness in the party’s leadership structure.
However, rather than being the remedy, the change of baton at the BoT leadership may as well be a mere placebo.
What the Wike camp demanded was the resignation of the PDP National Chairman, Dr. Iyorchia Ayu and his replacement with another party member from the South.
Before Jibrin’s resignation, the PDP presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar; the National Chairman and BoT chair were all of Northern extraction.
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The BoT is only an advisory body which also plays mediatory role in times of crisis. This, it is not in any way vested with the power to take or enforce decisions on the party.
Regarded as the “conscience of the party”, the body is made up mainly of party elders, including past and incumbent presidents who are still members of the PDP.
On the other hand, the PDP constitution vests enormous powers in the National Chairman who presides over the National Working Committee (NWC) that runs the day-to-day affairs of the party.
It is yet to be seen how the appointment of Wabara, a party leader from Abia State, Southeast, can address the agitation by the Wike camp.
Observers say Wabara’s appointment was to give the Southeast, Labour Party’s presidential candidate Peter Obi’s base, a semblance of foothold in the PDP. They also describe it as clever way of saying that the South now has a sense of belonging in the PDP leadership.
But the Rivers governor and his loyalists have, in unmistakable terms, insisted on Ayu’s resignation as one of the conditions to campaign for Atiku in the 2023 election.
Wike had faulted the change in baton at the BoT hierarchy hours after the announcement was made, giving a clear indication that the crisis in the party was far from being over.
“Ayu, not Jibrin should resign”, Wike said when the news about the BoT chair’s resignation broke.
With barely three weeks to the official flag off of the 2023 election campaign, the PDP has yet to constitute its presidential campaign council.
The PDP National Executive Committee (NEC), at its meeting yesterday, had passed a confidence vote in Ayu and his team in the NWC.
Coming from the party’s highest decision making organ, the confidence vote was a declaration that the PDP is not in a hurry to throw Ayu out the window.
It’s a no win scenario as the opposing camps may have to spend more time in the trenches.