Posted by By JACOB EDI, Abuja on
Professor Jerry Gana, former Secretary of the Peoples Democratic Party's Board of Trustees (BOT) on Monday took on his former boss and chairman of the party, Dr. Ahmadu Ali, accusing him of dumping the report of the Alex Ekwueme committee and of insincerity in handling the entire reconciliation process.
Professor Jerry Gana, former Secretary of the Peoples Democratic Party's Board of Trustees (BOT) on Monday took on his former boss and chairman of the party, Dr. Ahmadu Ali, accusing him of dumping the report of the Alex Ekwueme committee and of insincerity in handling the entire reconciliation process.
The committee, set up under the Ali-led National Working Committee (NWC), submitted its report but the recommendations were not implemented .
Gana, a former minister and presidential aspirant, told journalists, shortly after the inauguration of a fresh committee set up by the new PDP chairman, Prince Vincent Ogbulafor, to review the Ekwueme committee report, that the founding fathers of the PDP and other major stakeholders were disappointed with Ali for dumping the Ekwueme committee's report after it was accepted by the party as panacea to intra-party wrangling.
He said: 'We feel disappointed that they were not ready to implement such a vital and important document, which was put together by some illustrious members of the party led by the former Vice President (Alex) Ekwueme, including Mallam Adamu Ciroma, Senator Aminu Wali, my humble self, and many other distinguished members of our party.
'They took their time, went down the nation, as old as some of them were, and wrote an excellent report and for that report to be put aside and for nothing to have been done, we felt disappointed.
'Fortunately, there is time for everything. The good Lord is wonderful. It is now time for the report to be implemented fully, properly and effectively."
Earlier, chairman of the committee and deputy national chairman of the party, Dr. Bello Haliru, said by the time the Ekwueme report was fully implemented, no clique would be allowed to hijack the party. He warned those planning to hijack activities of the party to have a rethink.
'This happens to be a unique opportunity because I happened to be there at the beginning when President Yar'Adua came into the State House and one of the first things he did was to seek to restore the party to a people's party, to give it back to the founding fathers and to the multitude of people who have flocked to the umbrella of the PDP to make it the only party acceptable to the people of Nigeria," Dr. Haliru said.
In his comments, Ogbulafor enjoined the committee to ensure that the party's founding fathers and those who left the party in protest were brought back to its fold.
He regretted that 'not much has happened to the Ekwueme committee's report," adding: 'The report is too important to be abandoned on the shelf."