Ortom tells PDP internal rift will be costly if the leadership fails to act quickly
By Jeph Ajobaju, Chief Copy Editor
“All is not well” in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the internal rift will cost it the 2023 vote unless the leadership moves fast to overcome these difficult times, Benue Governor Samuel Ortom has warned.
He admitted the dispute between PDP presidential candidate Atiku Abubakar and Rivers Governor Nyesom Wike is negatively affecting the party, and berated the leadership for acting too late to resolve the fiasco.
Failure to apply internal conflict resolution mechanism to resolve the rancour over the stay in office of PDP National Chairman Iyorchia Ayu creates problems for the party, Ortom argued in a statement he issued through his Media Aide Nathaniel Ikyu.
The PDP National Executive Committee (NEC) on 7 September passed a confidence vote in Ayu to prevent his resignation.
Wike declared the confidence vote cannot save Ayu, insisting there would be no reconciliation until he resigns.
He also dismissed the resignation of PDP Board of Trustees (BoT) Chairman Walid Jibrin on 8 September, saying it will not reconcile him with Atiku and the PDP, because the demand is for Ayu to step down.
Ortom, one of many Wike’s allies in the PDP, said the party waited for the crisis to escalate.
“There are certain internal mechanisms that should apply to conflict resolution within the party. Some of these instruments should have been deployed long ago,” he said in the statement.
He spoke of further truce talks between the Atiku and Wike camps.
“Discussions are ongoing at different levels away from the public eye, to ensure unity and oneness of purpose in the PDP, with eyes on 2023.
“I am very interested in ensuring that we discuss. I want us to have a win-win situation so that people will feel they have been carried along.”
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PDP reinventing itself
Ortom said regardless of its present challenges, the PDP will reinvent itself in good time to defeat the All Progressives Congress (APC) in 2023, according to reporting by Vanguard.
He disclosed the Wike camp is still open to discussion, there are substantive issues to be thrashed out, but enthused the PDP will not “cross the Rubicon” even though all is not well with the party at the moment.
“I will not say that all is well with our party. The good thing is that we recognise the issues and we have generated dialogue in various ways.
“Engagement is what I have always encouraged. Everybody cannot be winning all the time.”
He stressed the need for the PDP to unite and be in good stead to defeat the APC in 2023, as the PDP remains a viable alternative to the “dismal and abysmal” performance of the APC in its seven years in power.
Communicating with Buhari
Ortom explained the blockage of his access to Muhammadu Buhari necessitated his media attacks on the President.
“We applied for a bailout of N42 billion from the Federal Government to enable us to offset longstanding arrears of salaries, pensions and gratuities.
“Some of these people scrambled to State House to tell the President not to release the funds even after approval so that we will not take the credit for solving the age-long problem.
“This is the kind of mean-spirited attitude APC is inflicting on our people.
“It is the very same people who have ensured my inaccessibility to the President. I said it before. It is now almost two years since I last saw the President. If I had access to him, I will prefer a one-on-one exchange with him.
“Since that is not possible, I go to the press. I must talk, I must express myself. I am holding this office in trust for several million people of Benue State. I am not here of my own volition.”