I am able to prevent Ortom and others from running for office, says Ayu

Senator Iyorchia Ayu, the national chairman of the People’s Democratic Party, has bragged that he has the authority to prevent Samuel Ortom, the governor of Benue State, from fulfilling his desire to run for the Senate on the party’s platform.

The pair, who are both from the Benue North West senatorial district, got into an argument immediately after the party’s presidential primary poll, which chose Abubakar Atiku over Nyesom Wike, the governor of Rivers State, as the party’s front-runner.

Since then, Senator Iyorchia Ayu’s resignation as party chairman has been regularly demanded by Wike and his counterparts in Benue, Oyo, Abia, and Enugu as the sole solution to bring harmony back to the main opposition party.

The governor’s aspirations to serve in the Senate are in jeopardy due to the Ayu/Ortom rivalry that has divided the party in Benue State. Ayu kinsmen in the Jemgbah axis have accused the governor of working with others to remove their son from his high office.

Speaking in the Tiv dialect to the gathering in Gboko on Friday, Senator Ayu assured his supporters that he had the authority to block any candidate for the party, especially in the state, in order to exact revenge for all of the insults that had been made against him.

But he noted that he has chosen to keep quiet out of respect for all fathers and in an effort to keep the party together.

I have remained silent despite everything you have heard about me because I don’t want the party to which I belong in my state to suffer.

I have the authority to tell you that you cannot go because I will require my signature before you leave, he added.

“However, whether I wanted to or not, I signed to let all candidates created by the PDP to pursue their ambitions.

“I was acting in that manner in the belief that I could not shoot myself in the leg.

In order for Nigerians to say that the national chairman gave his state to the PDP with Alhaji Atiku Abubakar receiving 90% of the vote and Titus Uba becoming governor in 2023, I want Benue to come out on top in all elections.