National convention will further factionalise PDP —Shuluwa

DEPUTY chairman, Elders Forum of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Benue State, Chief Abu Shuluwa, has stated that the coming convention of the party in Port Harcourt will further factionalise the party.

Shuluwa, who spoke with newsmen at his residence in Makurdi, the Benue State capital, on Monday,  said the party was yet to organise itself before going into national convention, adding that, “the party is yet to solve the crisis created at the ward, local government and state congresses before embarking on national convention.”

He noted that the party had been hijacked by former governors and ministers, whom, he said were using ‘their looted ‘fund’ to further destabilise the party, stressing that “with the manner the party is going, there is no way it can wrest power from the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) in 2019.”

The former gubernatorial aspirant in Benue State decried the decision of the party to sideline elders and founding fathers of the party and boasted that in his state, the party would continue to lose unless proper things were done to reconcile all the aggrieved members.

“They appointed their sorogates and left behind the elders who had toiled day and night to nurture the party to become the largest political party in Africa and, suddenly, these young ones came from the blues and hijacked the party structure, because they have the money which they have looted and think they are in control, let them go ahead and see whether  the outcome of their convention will stand.”

“Any convention held without we, the elders of the party, will fail. Tomorrow’s convention will never bring PDP together. Holding national convention means that nothing is wrong at the grassroots level, but let me emphasise here that membership is at the grassroots, not at the national.”

Shuluwa explained that the party should  work on the report submitted to it after the party lost last year’s general election and implement the recommendations made. This, he said, would have given the party a life line, saying  “they are doing as if nothing happened and the problem in the party will continue until the right thing is done and all the hijackers leave the party.”