2023: Wike’s supporters absent during BoT meeting as Ayu might stay until 2023 election

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The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Board of Trustees (BoT) met yesterday, but it was gathered that leaders backing Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers State were not present

Reports were gathered that those who were missing from the meeting held at the National Executive Council Hall at the PDP National Secretariat include: Governor Nyesom Wike, Prof. Jerry Gana, and Sen. Zainab Kure

According to Vanguard newspaper, reports said, “After taking stock of what transpired during and after our national convention and the choice of running mate, we all agreed we have a problem.

“We cannot deny the fact that we need most, if not all of our party members on board but the question is at what cost?

“There were those who raised issues with the party’s current leadership structure which has been one of the bones of contention of Wike and his group.

“As things stand today, our National Chairman, the Chairman of the Board of Trustees and of course our Presidential candidate are all northerners.

“We need to balance our sense of history with fairness in order not to give our opponents talking points during the campaigns.

“On the other hand, Atiku’s supporters in response to the demand in some quarters that Ayu should step down, argue that it would be a harmful strategy to remove the chairman with barely six or seven months to the 2023 elections because Ayu himself knows he must leave without being asked to do so as soon as we win. These are the issues we are dealing with.

“We agreed to set up a committee involving all our (BoT) members to first go and meet the former Vice President who is our candidate for the 2023 presidential election, Atiku Abubakar. This decision to go to him first is in recognition of the order of protocol.

“We will then go and meet with governor Wike to hear from him, beg him if we need to, although some members are not in agreement but we need peace to return for us to move forward. These issues must be thrashed out before we can set up our campaign council.”