Posted by From JACOB EDI, Abuja on
The leadership crisis in the Progressive Peoples Alliance (PPA) took a turn for the worse yesterday when a group within the National Working Committee (NWC) announced the suspension of its National Chairman, Alhaji Sule Ahmed.
…I'm still chairman, says Ahmed
The leadership crisis in the Progressive Peoples Alliance (PPA) took a turn for the worse yesterday when a group within the National Working Committee (NWC) announced the suspension of its National Chairman, Alhaji Sule Ahmed.
Comrade Adamu Song, led the group and also announced the suspension at a news conference in Abuja in his capacity as acting national chairman of the party.
He accused Ahmed of embezzling party funds to the tune of N3 million.
Song also said the National Executive Council (NEC) meeting of the party will hold on Monday and any directive to the contrary should be ignored.
In the middle of the controversy is N12 million INEC grant and disagreements over the Government of National Unity (GNU).
But Ahmed, in a swift reaction denied the allegations and said he remains the chairman of the party, adding that the scheduled NEC meeting will not hold because it is illegal.
Explaining the party's position, National Publicity Secretary, Olu Akerele said 'there has been misappropriation of party funds. To get to the root of it, the NWC wrote him. We expected he will respond but he has not. He admitted that some funds were with him and we followed due process in suspending him."
Before the press conference where his suspension was announced, Ahmed was at the party secretariat and left after about twenty minutes of meeting with the Song group.
While Song claimed they confronted Ahmed with the facts of the financial impropriety, Ahmed said he was there to ask why they had called a press conference without his knowledge 'and they assured me there was nothing."
Ahmed also said there was no time he received any letter asking him about party funds as claimed by the Song group.
According to him, he has been outside the country for over five weeks for medical check-up and 'none of them tried to reach me to find out how am doing."
He, however, admitted collecting N3 million from the INEC grant to use in prosecuting the elections after spending three nights trying to see the party's presidential candidate, Orji Kalu, in Umuahia without luck.