Former Deputy National Chairman of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Chief Olabode George, on Wednesday, said the decision reached by governors and elders of the party to cut short the tenure of Prince Uche Secondus-led leadership, and schedule a National Convention for October this year, is the most sensible thing to do to stabilise the party.
Chief George said this while speaking with Tribune Online on the telephone, in reaction to the outcome of the meeting held in Abuja, the Federal Capital, by the governors and elders of the party to save it from going deeper into crisis, following growing calls by some stakeholders for the resignation of Prince Secondus, the incumbent national chairman of PDP.
The party elders and governors, in reaching the decision, charged the National Executive Committee (NEC) to urgently convene and set up a National Convention Committee (NCC) that would conduct congresses from ward to local government and state level, leading to the convention at the national level that would elect a new national chairman and his team.
Prince Secondus’ tenure is supposed to end in December but has been cut short by two months, following the outcome of Tuesday’s meeting held by PDP stakeholders in Abuja.
George, while throwing his support for the decision arrived at by PDP elders and governors, describing it as the most sensible thing to do to stabilise the party, counselled that the National Convention Committee should be given free hand to operate and not interfered with by the Secondus led leadership, in conducting congresses down to the national convention of the party.
“That’s the most sensible thing to do to stabilise the party. They should immediately get the National Convention Committee who would run the Congresses from the Wards to the National.
“These people (Secondus led leadership) should have no hand in it, the National Convention Committee. The National Convention Committee should be allowed to run the gamut of all these things, to the end of the convention, that’s all. Ko si ja nibe o (no fight there). I am completely in support of the decisions of the elders,” the elder statesman said.
Chief George, who is also the Atona of the Source, said with the decision fully implemented, PDP would come back much stronger, pointing out that the party was in its present dire situation due to mismanagement and disrespect for its constitution, even as he declared that PDP was not a private company.
“Oh, the party would come back much stronger. It is because of the mismanagement and disrespect for the constitution that the party has found itself in this present situation. What they are to do is there, it is not a private company.
“That’s all. I am in concert with what the elders came up with yesterday,” he said.
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