8th September, 2022
The Chairman of the Board of Trustee (BoT) of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Senator Walid Jibrin, has resigned his position over the crisis rocking the party.
“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.
Jibrin has held the position for six years after taking over from Haliru Bello who was removed in 2016.
However, he tendered his resignation after some members of the PDP national working committee (NWC) met in Abuja on Tuesday and resolved not to attend any meeting presided over by Iyorchia Ayu, the national chairman, henceforth.
Sources close to Jibrin had also revealed he will step down due to complaints of regional lop-sidedness.
Atiku Abubakar, presidential candidate of the party, is from Adamawa (north-east), Jibrin hails from Nasarawa (north-central), and Ayu is from Benue (north-central).
In 2021, Ayu said he would resign as PDP national chairman if a northerner became the party’s presidential candidate.
He has refused to step down after the emergence of Atiku.
Meanwhile, Nyesom Wike, governor of Rivers, is the leader of the PDP team calling for the resignation of Ayu as a precondition for resolving their rift with Abubakar.
Insiders said some of the stakeholders welcomed Jibrin’s decision but also insisted that should Ayu resign from his position too “in the interest of equity”.
They said Abubakar must also commit to stay in office for one term if elected president because power has been in the north for eight years.