Dr. Nwachukwu Anakwenze, a former PDP candidate for president, has pleaded with the party's national chairman, Dr. Iyorchia Ayu, to save the PDP by resigning from his position if this is the only way to keep the PDP from losing the general election in 2023.
He stressed that Nigeria urgently needs a rescue operation and that no sacrifice should be too severe for Ayu to make in the cause of the party and the nation as a whole.
The embattled PDP national chairman was urged in a statement released on Friday by Comrade Eric Oluwole, Director General of the Anakwenze Campaign Organization, to prevent the house he helped to build from collapsing in front of his own eyes just days before the PDP wins the presidency on February 25, 2023.
Anakwenze expressed his support behind the disgruntled Governor Nyesom Wike, who has demanded that Ayu leave so that a Southerner can take over the party's activities in order to maintain balance. Anakwenze claimed that the political strongman of Rivers had legitimate concerns that could not be criticised.
He also stressed that the Ndigbo in the PDP should be aggrieved more than Wike and any other political bloc within the party especially from the southern region, which he said had not been fair to the South East.
He said, “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 Obuabunwa, 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 as 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 within 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.”
Anakwenze warned that the helpless Nigerians, who have been highly expectant and praying passionately that a new PDP President should come in to salvage them from the current hardships, if by the party stakeholders failed to put the PDP house in order to wrestle power from the All Progressives Congress, APC, come 2023.
“No sacrifice is too big to ensure that the PDP goes into the coming electoral battle, which will kick off in few days, as a united and most formidable force to rescue our dear country Nigeria from the worsening untold suffering being daily experienced by, and which was imposed on our people through the maladministration and crass inefficiency of the ruling Government,” he added.
Nevertheless, Anakwenze restated his confidence that the PDP presidential candidate and ex-Vice President, Alhaji Abubakar, will find a lasting solution to the crisis before the February 25, 2023 presidential election.