Wike,who lost the presidential ticket to Atiku in the May primaries, has so far refused to be swayed by entreaties to work with Ayu.

He said if not for the love he and others in his camp had for the main opposition party, they could have prevented the PDP convention from holding.

Wike, who revealed this in an ongoing media parley, alleged that the PDP’s National Chairman, Iyorchia Ayu, played a vital role that was detrimental to other aspirants in the emergence of Atiku as PDP flagbearer.

The governor alleged that Ayu called several presidential aspirants to step down for the former vice president during the convention.

He was calling aspirants to withdraw for Atiku. I was there, Saraki and others were there.

“He manipulated the delegates. There was nothing Ayu did not do to ensure Wike didn’t emerge,” Wike said.

The governor added, “Meetings upon meetings were going. Pressures were being mounted on people to step down.

“Even on the night of the convention meetings were going on. That is why we started our convention late.

“Some of the retired generals were involved. Some of the meetings were held in their houses. There is nothing they didn’t do for me to step down.

Those who know me, know that I would have stopped the convention, even if heaven falls.”

Wike camp announced their plan not to participate in the campaign council which was scheduled for inauguration next Wednesday after a meeting at Wike’s private residence in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, on Wednesday morning.

Reacting to the withdrawal from his campaign council on Wednesday, Atiku in a statement he personally signed reiterated his decision not to interfere in the demands for Ayu’s removal.

This is coming hours after the crisis rocking the PDP deepened on Wednesday as Governor Nyesom Wike’s team pulled out of Atiku’s campaign council.

The members announced their decision to pull out of the council following a meeting early on Wednesday morning in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital.

They insisted that the PDP National Chairman must resign for them to rescind their decision.

But reacting to the pro-Wike group request, the former Vice president maintained that the sole decision is for Ayu to take, adding that no one can force the PDP chairman to resign.

“On the calls for the resignation or removal from office of our national chairman, however, I must reiterate what I have said severally in public and in private; the decision for Dr. Iyorchia Ayu to resign from office is personal to Dr. Ayu and, neither I nor anyone else can make that decision for him,” Atiku said in a statement on Wednesday.

The statement titled, ‘Let us join hands and move on with the task of nation building’ read, “Early this morning, my attention was drawn to a news clip in which several very senior and influential members of our great party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), addressed the press and, amongst other things, declared that they are withdrawing, forthwith, from the Presidential Campaign Council set up by our party to judiciously plan and prosecute the general elections set to hold in February and March 2023, on the one hand; and reiterated their earlier calls for the resignation or removal from office of the national chairman of our party, Senator Dr. Iyorchia Ayu, on the other hand.

The people that addressed the press must have their reasons for withdrawing from the Presidential Campaign Council, and I will not speculate as to what those reasons may be. Personally, I am quite surprised with this withdrawal because, as I have been informed by officials of our party, apart from the Rivers State chapter of the PDP, all the remaining states of the federation submitted names of people who they wanted to be included in the Presidential Campaign Council.

“On the calls for the resignation or removal from office of our national chairman, however, I must reiterate what I have said severally in public and in private; the decision for Dr. Iyorchia Ayu to resign from office is personal to Dr. Ayu and, neither I nor anyone else can make that decision for him. As to the calls for the removal of Dr. Ayu from office, however, I will state that, as a committed democrat and firm believer in the rule of law and democratic tenets, and our party being one set up, organized and regulated by law and our constitution, it is my absolute belief that everything that we do in our party must be done in accordance with, and conformity to, the law and our constitution.

“If Dr. Ayu is to be removed from office, it must be done in accordance with the laws that set out the basis for such removal. In any event, you will all recall that the very body that is empowered by law to initiate this removal from office, has already passed a vote of confidence in him.

Now, our nation is currently in the throes of a multidimensional crisis encompassing insecurity, economic meltdown, disunity and mutual mistrust and educational dislocations, to mention a few. I have a plan to address these issues and I have, graciously, been given the ticket to lead our great party in next year’s presidential elections, with the singular mandate to come and lead the efforts to cure these ills. It is in this light that I have reached out to every single member of our great party to join me in the massive undertaking required to reset the ship of state and help rebuild our country.

“Every single person who loves this country, as I do, is needed for the arduous tasks that face us ahead as a nation, and this includes every member of the PDP. And it is my fervent hope and prayer that every man and woman of goodwill will join hands with us to help rebuild and reposition our beloved country. In this light, therefore, I will urge those members of our party that has stated their resolve to withdraw from the Presidential Campaign Council to rethink, retrace their steps, and join us in these efforts.

“The above notwithstanding, and for the sake of our country, our children, and those yet unborn, we must not, for one minute, shirk in our responsibilities to rebuild this beloved country of ours.

“Accordingly, we must forge on with the task and the mandate that we have been bestowed with. It is time, therefore, to move on with the formidable tasks of nation-building ahead of us.

“May God guide us all, and may God soothe our great party, and our dear country.

He said Ayu, who is from the northern part of the country, could not continue to hold the position since the presidential candidate of the party is from the North.

George, who spoke at a press conference in Lagos on Thursday, said Ayu’s refusal to fulfil his promise meant that members of the party in the south were of no importance.

He said, “ Let me reiterate again that the will of the people must be respected and the six top offices in the country must be distributed equitably and fairly because PDP is not a private company. The office of the National Chairman must come to the South before we commence the presidential campaign if victory is to be secured in the next general election.

“In May this year, we elected our presidential candidate in the person of Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, setting aside the principle of rotation as enshrined in the constitution of our party in the interest of peace and unity of our party. Today, we are in a situation in which our National Chairman is from the same zone as our presidential candidate. “Some people are insisting that there is nothing wrong with this present arrangement. Some have argued that this happened during Chief Olusegun Obasanjo’s administration, where the candidate and the national chairman were from the same zone.