Haliru Bello Muhammed, a former national chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), has attributed the ongoing rift between the presidential candidate of the party, Atiku Abubakar and Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers State to the failure of the party’s Board of Trustees to act fast.
Wike and Atiku have been at loggerheads since the PDP presidential primary in May.
The governor lost out to the ex-vice president and was also snubbed as running mate, with Governor Ifeanyi Okowa of Delta State, preferred.
Efforts by PDP stakeholders and elders to resolve the crisis have since proved abortive.
On Friday, representatives of Atiku led by Governor Adamu Fintiri of Adamawa State met with the representatives of Wike in Port Harcourt in their move to broker peace between the two leaders of the PDP.
However, speaking during an interview on Channels TV’s Politics Today, Muhammed said the Board of Trustees should have moved in fast to appease Wike.
Muhammed said, “There has been a mistake on the side of the Board of Trustees. The Board of Trustees has the responsibility of moving in to resolve issues between party members or between party and legislature; or between legislature and president when we were in government; but this time, because we don’t have a president, the Board of Trustees did not act as it should.
“If the Board of Trustees had stepped in and strongly called the party to order, this problem would not have reached the state. But even then, it’s not too late. The party has set up a process in motion and we are working on the problem and I believe that after the Port Harcourt meeting, there will no longer be any problem.
“Wike will come back and join his brothers and sisters in the leadership of the party and we will move ahead to win the election in 2023.
“The Board of Trustees should have moved in to assuage him and bring him on the same wavelength with the nominee of the party but that was not done immediately and Wike felt slighted and neglected and felt unappreciated. I think that is what caused the whole problem.”