Posted by By Jacob Edi, Abuja on
Efforts by the leadership of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to reconcile the feuding elements in the party's fold suffered a massive setback yesterday as a group of aggrieved party chieftains sacked the National Working Committee (NWC) led by Dr. Amadu Ali.
Efforts by the leadership of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to reconcile the feuding elements in the party's fold suffered a massive setback yesterday as a group of aggrieved party chieftains sacked the National Working Committee (NWC) led by Dr. Amadu Ali.
The group has also got another office with a PDP signpost located at Mabushi area of Abuja.
The group, which identified itself as ‘Leaders and Co-founders of the PDP' and included some eminent past leaders of the party such as Senator Ibrahim Safana,
Alhaji Shuaibu Oyedokun and Ifeatu Obi-Okoye, asked members of the NWC to vacate their offices immediately and hand over to the directors in their variousdepartments.
It said it took the action in order to give a sense of direction for the party and ensure that it does not continue to nose-dive into oblivion.
At a press briefing in Abuja, Alhaji Shuaibu Oyedokun named the founding National Chairman of the PDP, Chief Solomon Lar, as the head of a 26-member Interim National Management Committee (IMC) to direct the affairs of the party pending the conduct of an elective national convention later in the year.
Others named in the committee are Safana (deputy national chairman, North); Oyedokun (deputy national chairman, South) and Chief Orji Nwafor-Orizu (national secretary); among others.
Those men were already in those positions before the crisis that dislodged the NWC led by Chief Audu Ogbeh.
In moving against the national officers of the party, the group faulted the process that ushered in the Ali-led executive, which it said was inconsistent with the constitution of the PDP, noting that 'affirmation is a method not known to our party's constitution."
Despite a court judgment against it, it said, the party went ahead to 'elect" the officers by affirmation, with the result that 'the party as far as the law is concerned has no person legally piloting its affairs."
The IMC, it said, should immediately set up committees in the states to manage the state affairs of the party in the interim while setting up the local government and ward interim management committees.
Observing that most of those who laboured to found the PDP had been chased out of the party by those who benefited from their struggle, it said: 'Today, of the 34 founding fathers, only three members are yet to be chased out of the party by those elements who were mere beneficiaries of the struggles of G34."
According to the group, most of those at the hierarchy of party and government today are 'Abacha foot-soldiers" The PDP, it said, 'has been hijacked by night guards."
Regretting what it called a mass exodus from the party of its leaders and founding fathers, it directed the IMC to put a machinery in motion to bring back the estranged party faithful into the PDP fold.
It nullified the expulsion of ex-Governor Chris Ngige and indefinite suspension of Governor Joshua Dariye from the PDP, adding that all activities of the party carried out by the Ali executive, including the membership revalidation exercise and congresses at the ward, council, state and zonal levels stood voided.
No fewer than 17 serving governors of the PDP as well as Chief Solomon Lar, attended the emergency meeting..
But in a swift reaction, the embattled PDP leadership has dismissed the development as illegal and that the party will go through a legal process to pursue the matter.
National Publicity Secretary of the PDP, John Odey, told the press that there are no factions in the PDP.
'What is really happening at this stage is that an alliance of a few politicians who are stranded by virtue of a deserving loss of influence and reputation, together with politicians of some opposition parties rather than prepare for forthcoming
elections are indulging in a delusion that can scatter the ruling party," Odey said.
Chief Ojo Maduekwe, PDP scribe, warned that the party's resolve for reconciliation should not be viewed as a sign of weakness.
'Our olive branch should not be taken to be a white flag of surrender. No one should be under any illusion that we are scared," he declared.