Peter Obi’s Discoverer, BoT Member and Atiku Man Resigns from PDP

PDP stalwart and BoT member who talent-hunted Peter Obi in 2001 resigns from party over injustice to Southern Nigeria by the leading opposition party

Former Minister of Health and a member of the Board of Trustees (BoT) of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP and a frontline supporter of the party’s presidential candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, Prof. ABC Nwosu, has resigned his membership of the party. 

Prof Nwosu is famously remembered as the man who talented-hunted Mr Peter Obi, the Labour Party (LP) presidential candidate and Nigeria’s current fastest rising political figure who is tipped by several opinion polls to win the February 25 presidential election.

Following an orgy of bad leadership induced by avaricious godfathers that plagued Anambra State in the dawn of this republic, Professor Nwosu scouted a young banker, Peter Obi as the right man to bail the state out of the retrogressive quagmire.

In 2001, Prof Nwosu was approached by concerned stakeholders of Anambra State to contest for governor of the state as anger rose over the dismal performance of Governor Chinwoke Mbadinuju whose administration had been stymied by greedy godfathers. Nwosu declined the offer and instead recommended, then politically unfledged Peter Obi as the best man to offer purposeful people-centred leadership in the traumatized state.

After much persuasion, Obi accepted the offer and won the 2003 governorship election on the platform of newly registered All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA). He was initially robbed of his electoral triumph by the ruling PDP but fought bravely through the courts for three years before reclaiming the stolen mandate in 2006.

In his letter of resignation from the main opposition PDP, Prof Nwosu cited the refusal of the party to respect its power rotation and zoning principle as reason for his action. 

Nwosu, a known ally of the presidential candidate of the PDP, former Vice President Atiku Abubakar served as Minister of Health during the administration of Ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo. 

Prof Nwosu’s letter of resignation dated January 12, 2023 was addressed to the PDP National Chairman, Dr. Iyorchia Ayu and the acting chairman of the BoT, Senator Adolphus Wabara. 

In the letter, Prof Nwosu said he was leaving the party because of its failure to adhere to the zoning arrangement in its constitution. 

It read in part, “I hereby resign my membership of the Peoples Democratic Party and its Board of Trustees with effect from today Thursday 12th January, 2023,” the letter reads.

“This resignation for me is a matter of conscience and principle because of the Party’s inability to adhere to the rotation provision in its (PDP) constitution.

“The journey to rotational presidency between the North and South of Nigeria has been a long and arduous one and I have been involved.”

According to him, the opposition party “must learn” to respect the provisions in its constitution and the agreement reached by party members and stakeholders.

Prof Nwosu  maintained that, “Nigeria and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) must learn to keep to an agreement reached by a Constituent Assembly (1995), and enshrined in the Party’s (PDP) Constitution (1998),” 

Recall that months preceding the party’s presidential primary, various interest groups including Southern Governors of PDP extraction, demanded that the Presidency be zoned to the South after President Muhammadu Buhari’s tenure. 

Specifically, party faithful mounted pressure using various platforms to demand that the party zone its Presidential ticket to the South. 

The party’s national executive committee (NEC) approved the report of its zoning committee which recommended that the presidential ticket should be thrown open to all zones. 

However, intrigues took the better part of negotiations ahead of the PDP presidential primary election held in May 2022, leading to the emergence of Atiku as the party’s Presidential candidate. 

The G-5 Governors led Mr Nyesom Wike of Rivers State have been in the vanguard of the fight against perceived imbalance and inequities in the PDP.

Image News gathered that Prof Nwosu is set to endorse Peter Obi as the ideal person needed to steer the affairs of Nigeria in this period as the president.