This is not the best of times for the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Benue State Governor Samuel Ortom admitted on Monday.
“I will not say that all is well with our party,” the governor said in a statement issued by his spokesman, Nathaniel Ikyu.
Ortom took a swipe at the PDP leadership for acting rather too late to resolve the rift between presidential candidate Atiku Abubakar and Rivers State Governor Nyesom Wike.
He believed the failure to apply the existing internal conflict resolution mechanism to resolve the dispute over the continued stay in office of Dr. Iyorchia Ayu as PDP National Chairman created camps within the opposition party.
He blamed the lingering crisis on what he called the dithering of the leadership.
The Rivers governor rejected last Thursday’s resignation of the party’s Board of Trustee (BoT) chairman, Senator Walid Jibrin, as a condition for reconciliation with Atiku and the PDP.
On September 7, the PDP National Executive Committee (NEC) passed a confidence vote in Ayu, a move that seemed to have foreclosed Ayu’s resignation.
But Wike declared the confidence vote cannot save Ayu, saying there would be no reconciliation until the party chairman resignsed.
Chiding the PDP leadership for lack of a speedy reconciliation mechanism, Ortom, one of the allies loyal to the Rivers governor, said the party waited for the crisis to fester before taking steps to resolve it.
The governor observed that the PDP ignored its existing internal conflict resolution mechanism, which he said, the party leaders ought to have deployed to resolve the crisis long before the situation degenerated.
He said: “There are certain internal mechanisms that should apply to conflict resolution within the party.
“Some of these instruments should have been deployed long ago.”
Ortom urged further dialogue between the Atiku and Wike camps, adding that discussions were still ongoing among various stakeholders to resolve the crisis.
“Discussions are going at different levels away from the public eye, to ensure unity and oneness of purpose in the PDP, with eyes on 2023.
