Hours after he made new and damning allegations of corruption against the National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Dr. Iyorchia Ayu, Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike, and three other governors in his anti-Ayu camp jetted out of the country to seek justice, equity and fairness in Spain.
The group has been meeting in London for their crucial meetings.
It is not yet clear what informed the change of venue, but it was learnt that the group left the country for Madrid, Spain, on Friday night.
Others in the Wike’s team included Governors Seyi Makinde (Oyo); Okezie Ikpeazu (Abia) and Samuel Ortom (Benue).
It was learnt that Enugu State Governor, Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi, might join them later.
The five governors are insisting that Ayu, who hails from Benue State, must quit office to create room for a Southern chairmanship since the presidential candidate of the party, Atiku Abubakar, hails from Adamawa, Northern Nigeria.
Hours before the trip, Wike had addressed the press in Port Harcourt where he accused Ayu of monumental corruption and challenged the National Chairman to deny.
“Let Ayu say he did not collect N1 billion. In fact, let me also tell you, Ayu collected another N100 million from a Governor that he was going to renovate our democratic institution and then he went back to the PDP NWC and took the same N100 million for doing the same work,” Wike alleged.
“If people know what we know, if we release what we have, Ayu’s children will go to him and say we are no longer your children,” Wike further said.
But responding to Wike’s allegations for the first time on Friday, Ayu said the N1 billion was a proposed bank loan that the party wanted to take from a friendly commercial bank.
He however said the party dropped the idea after due consultations.
On the N100 million, Ayu admitted that a PDP Governor actually made the donation to the party for the purpose of renovating the NDI office accommodation, and insisted that the money had been deployed in doing the work.
Aside the call for the resignation of Ayu as their minimum condition for peace in the party, the Wike-led group also has issues with the presidential campaign council of the party’s Presidential Candidate, Atiku Abubakar.
On Friday, the party’s Board of Trustees (BoT) met in Abuja and urged Dr. Iyorchia Ayu, “as an eminent leader, to give firm assurance that he will resign his position after the 2023 election.”
The Sen. Adolphus Wabara-led BoT also called on the presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, to review the membership of the Presidential Campaign Council and other advisory appointments to make them all-inclusive, while “the BoT chairman was authorised to offer apologies on behalf of all members of the party who feel maligned or aggrieved by the public statements made by its members nationwide that have sharpened the current division in the party.”
The outcome of the Madrid meeting will show if these moves were good enough to assuage the angst of Wike and the gang of five.
