FORMER Education Minister and an Aspirant to the office of the National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Profesor Tunde Adeniran, on Monday, threatened to pull out of the Peace accord signed by the eight contenders in the race ahead of the Party’s National Convention slated for next month.
Prof Adeniran who dropped the hint in Abuja yesterday through the Director General of his Campaign Organisation, Alhaji Shehu Gabam, while addressing newsmen said the action became necessary following alleged attempts by the Senator Ahmed Makarfi led National Caretaker Committee (NCC) to impose one of the Aspirants on the Party as the National Chairman.
This came just as the former Ambassador to Germany who insisted that the South-West zone of the Country must produce the next National Chairman of the Party in its overall interest declared that “anyone who underscores the importance of the South-West producing the next leader of the opposition, will be doing so at his or her own peril.”
According to him, “the chairmanship of PDP must go to the South-West, anyone who underestimates the South-West is doing so at his or her own peril. By consensus, this chairmanship must go to the South-West. Whoever emerged so be it.”
Adeniran accused the National Caretaker Committee headed by Senator Ahmed Makarfi of giving an unfair advantage to one of the chairmanship aspirant, Prince Uche Secondus, a one-time Acting National Chairman of the Party from the South-South.
According to him, “some of Secondus supporters were sent by the party leadership to conduct congresses to produce delegates for December 9 national convention without any consultation whatsoever with other Aspirants.
“Some of those who conducted delegates election are chief campaigners for Secondus. You have George Sekibo, Austin Opara, you can see Emeka Ihedioha, an aspirant has its men entrenched in how the delegates emerged. We disagree on this.”
He then pleaded with the National Executive Committee (NEC) of the Party meeting in Abuja on this Thursday to quickly set up the National Convention Planning Committee for proper and transparency of the Convention avoid an unprecedented crisis in the Party again.
According to him, we may be forced to pull out of the peace accord we voluntarily signed with other aspirants because with what is happening now, it is the management of the Party that is breaching the spirits of the Peace accord.
“Our organisation was very shocked when we saw the names of those who went for the last weekend congress for the delegates at the National Convention, we were not aware of the list and so were other aspirants.
“This shows that it is the Management of the Party that is creating divisions among the Aspirants which is not acceptable to us.
“We warned against impunity, we warned against imposition of any form, we warned against rascals and potential consequences on the Party before they went for the Port Harcourts National Convention but they didn’t listen to us, that was why we organised a parallel National Convention in Abuja and look at how the crisis almost killed the Party before the Supreme Court judgement.
“They are at it again and they are being warned ‘again’ but they will still not listen, we are out to tell that nobody has the monopoly of knowledge on issues, if the National Convention is manipulated by any form, we will not allow it stand, am not in this race to be defeated stupidly.
“They have been boasting around that they have unity list that they work with and that with the Unity list they have won the National Convention yet to be conducted.
He lamented that the same imposition of Candidate and impunity of the highest order is still very much being practiced in the Party which made it lose the just concluded governorship election in Anambra State as the Party’s leadership ignored all the protests from the stakeholders.
and then