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Peoples Democratic Party Board of Trustees Chairman, Walid Jibril, has resigned, it was learnt.
“I am stepping down as the chairman of BoT. I am stepping down to make it easier for all of us,” he said at a BoT and National Executive Committee meeting on Thursday in Abuja.
Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers State on Thursday insisted that Iyorchia Ayu must step down as the chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party. Wike said the presidential candidate of the PDP, Atiku Abubakar, told him in person when he won the May primary that Ayu must vacate his position as party chairman.
“When we finished our convention on a Saturday to Sunday, the candidate of the party (Atiku) came to see me in my house in Abuja on Monday around 10:30am…The candidate told me: ‘I want us to work together’ and then he said, ‘Look, Ayu must go’. “I said why? He said because when a candidate comes from the north, the chairman will come from the south. And I am saying, implement what you told me. What offence have I committed? It has nothing to do with Wike; it has to do with integrity.
“I challenge the presidential candidate to deny this. If he denies this, I will go further to say so many things to Nigerians because enough is enough,” the governor said on Thursday during the commissioning of the Ahoada Campus of the Rivers State University in the Ahoada East Local Government Area of the state.
Wike was at the occasion alongside his ally, Governor Seyi Makinde of Oyo State. The governor said the resignation of Walid Jibril as the Board of Trustees chairman won’t stop his demand for Ayu’s removal. “This fight we will fight it to the end,” he said.
The National Executive Council of the Peoples Democratic Party has passed a vote-of-confidence on Senator Iyorchia Ayu, suggesting that the party chairman will not be stepping down any time soon.
A motion for the vote of confidence on the PDP’s National Working Committee (NWC) was moved by the minority leader of the House of Representatives, Ndudi Elumelu at the BoT and NEC meeting which held in Abuja on Thursday.
The vote was supported by a NEC member from Kwara State and presided over by the acting chairman of the PDP BoT, Adolphus Wabara.
There have been several calls by the southern caucus of the PDP for the party’s national chairman, Iyorchia Ayu, to step down for a southerner, however, with the vote-of-confidence, it is almost certain that Senator Ayu will not be vacating the seat.
By Emeka Eze, Abuja.
Following the call by party members to allow other political blocs in Owerri Zone present PDP Governorship candidate in the 2023 election, the party’s 2015 and 2019 candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Imo state, Chief Emeka Ihedioha has stated that he would not run on PDP platform in the interest of equity, justice and fairness in the zone.
Chief Ihedioha made this open Thursday while responding to questions from newsmen at the PDP National Headquarters, Abuja shortly after the party’s NEC meeting.
Ihedioha said that since party leaders, critical stakeholders and members are agitating for the rotation of PDP Governorship ticket in the four blocs in Owerri Zone, it would be unfair and act of greed to contest on the party’s platform in 2023 since his candidature may not be accepted by party leaders.
According to Ihedioha, “I will not deny the fact that PDP has favored me more than any other person in the party, and it will amount to ingratitude, selfishness and greed if I continue to allow my personal interest to destroy the party. I have decided to step aside but my decision will be made open soon”
Ihedioha therefore promised to disclose his next political sojourn at the appropriate time, urging his supporters to reduce the rate in which they promote PDP in Imo state until he makes his decision known to them, he also boasted that wherever he goes the state executive of PDP in Imo state will surely go with him.
While reiterating his earlier stand not to support Labour Party and its Presidential candidate, Mr Peter Obi, Ihedioha maintained that he would continue to ensure that the PDP candidate, Atiku Abubakar wins the 2023 poll.
“Any Nigerian who lives abroad, funding the campaign of Peter Obi shall be arrested. It is against our electoral laws...one thing Nigerians who based abroad failed to understand is that they cannot stay there and dictate to us how to govern our country. Someone will seat in United States of America and be telling us what to do and what not to do as if we don’t know what we are doing in this country".
“If you violate the electoral law, you will face the penalty squarely and we will do everything within our power to prosecute both you and the candidate you are funding his campaign..."
“We’ve received a signal that some individuals, mostly Nigerians living abroad have taken it upon themselves to fund the campaign of Mr Peter Obi who’s the Presidential candidate of the Labour Party in the forthcoming Presidential election..."
“What these individuals failed to understand is that Nigerian is a democratic nation governed by democratic rules and regulations. It is against the electoral act for those living abroad to sponsor any candidate in an election. Those involved should desist from such act or have us to contend with. We will resist it by all means. Such fund cannot enter Nigeria. Although we have put measures on ground to apprehend those who will get themselves involved in such an act.”
Liz Truss on Tuesday officially became Britain’s new prime minister, at an audience with head of state Queen Elizabeth II after the resignation of Boris Johnson. The former foreign secretary, 47, was seen in an official photograph shaking hands with the monarch to accept her offer to form a new government and become the 15th prime minister of her 70-year reign.
The symbolic ceremony took place at the sovereign’s remote Balmoral retreat in the Scottish Highlands, as the queen, 96, was deemed unfit to return to London due to ill health. “The queen received in audience the right honourable Elizabeth Truss MP today and requested her to form a new administration,” Buckingham Palace said in a statement.
“Ms Truss accepted Her Majesty’s offer and kissed hands upon her appointment as prime minister. The last time the handover of power took place at Balmoral was in 1885, when Queen Victoria was on the throne. Normally, the outgoing and incoming prime minister meet the queen in quick succession at Buckingham Palace in central London.
It has only been held once outside London since 1952, when Winston Churchill met the new queen at Heathrow Airport after the death of her father, King George VI.