Wike Rejects Jibrin’s Resignation As PDP BoT Chair

Rivers State governor, Nyesom Ezenwo Wike, has rejected the resignation of the chairman of the People’s Democratic Party Board of Trustees (BoT), Senator Walid Jibrin, describing his position as mere advisory.

This is as the governor wondered why both PDP presidential candidate and the national chairman will come from the Northern part of the country, with nothing coming to the Southern part of the country.

Wike spoke on Thursday at the commissioning of the Faculty of Humanities of the Rivers State University at Ahoada Town in Ahoada-East local government area of Rivers State.

The governor said: “They have today told the BoT chairman to resign. Who is talking about chairman of BoT? What is the role of the BoT? BoT is an advisory body. We have never zoned BoT, BoT is an advisory body. BoT is not a decision-making body.

“Those who run as it is today is the presidential candidate or the president and chairman of the party. The chairman of the party and the candidate or the president as the case may be, are those who sit down to take decisions.

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“The candidate is from the North, the chairman is from the North. Who will represent the South in decision-making? It is not about me. What I am asking for, you have taken the president, you can’t take the two major positions of a party. You cannot do that. And some sycophants will not understand.”

He berated a former Niger State governor, Dr Muazu Babangida Aliyu, for accusing of him of trying to destroy the leading opposition political party in the country.

Wike said: “There is an issue; one thing annoys me and we seem to forget easily. There is one empty barrel; one man they call Aliyu Babangida, who will come out on national television to say somebody is destroying the party because he didn’t win the presidential primaries. That is an insult.

“This is the same man who came out on television and said, they, governors agreed to fail Jonathan in 2015 because they felt it was the turn of the North. The same man said look, ‘we agreed’. Aliyu Babangida said so, that they agreed to make sure that the PDP loses that election because they felt that it was their own turn to produce the president. That was what he said. Is it not correct?

“All of you have forgotten. That is why sometimes, it is good to be playing such things on television so that people will be hearing. That is the man who is saying today that I am trying to destroy the party because I did not win the presidential primaries.

“For Christ’s sake, in a contest, there must be a winner and there must be a loser. I have no regrets; we contested the election very well and we are not ashamed. If Babangida Aliyu knew that he was important, he should have picked form so that we will deal with him. In any case, he was a governor and as a serving governor, he could not win a senatorial election.

“Imagine me as governor going to lose a senatorial election, then, you will know that something is fundamentally wrong with me. That means my people don’t love me, that me I never performed. After serving as a governor and I lose senatorial election, that is a vote of no confidence. He does not understand that.

“That is the man PDP allowed to come on television to campaign for the PDP. Ask him when he was governor, what were his legacy projects? How many people in this country who came to commission his projects? Ask him.

“You should ask, if I come in today to campaign for my party or any other party, people will ask me, you that is campaigning self, what have you done in your state? Ask Aliyu Babangida, show me your report card when you were the governor of Niger State. I have been to Niger State and I asked people: when this man was governor, what did he do? Nothing!

“So, that is the man that will come out on national television to tell Nigerians who to vote for. You, when they gave you opportunity, what did you do? How can you now recommend us who to vote for when you could not perform. That is not even the issue.

“I told Nigerians before that at the appropriate time that I am going to speak. But, now that things are turning like this, let me be revealing things to you in bits, so that you people will know the kind of country we are in and you know how to see yourself. Are you part of this country? You will now begin to know and ask yourself questions. Am I part of this country?

“We are talking about how Ayu said if the presidential candidate comes from the North, that he will resign. By the convention of our party, the candidate of our party will come from the South.

“Now, when we finished our convention on a Saturday to Sunday, the candidate of a party came to see me in my house in Abuja on Monday, around 10:00 or 10:30 in the morning. That is what I don’t like in this country. The candidate told me and say, listen, ‘I want us to work together’. He said: ‘Ayu must go’. I said why? He said because when a candidate comes from the North, the chairman will come from the South.

“What I am saying is, implement what you told me. What offence have I committed? It has nothing to do with Wike, it has to do with integrity. This is what he told me. I challenge the presidential candidate to deny this. If he denies it, I will go further to say many things to Nigerians because enough is enough. We can’t continue this way.”