IN a frantic bid to save the main opposition Peoples Democratic party (PDP), main stakeholders have lined up a series of high-level consultations and meetings on the battle for the control of its national secretariat and relevant statutory organs.
Nigerian Tribune learnt that the committee set up by the Board of Trustees (BoT) of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to determine the fate of the present National Working Committee (NWC) is expected to meet this week to decide on the way to go.
The committee was set up last week following the resignation of seven elected members of the party’s National Executive Committee (NEC), who were also deputies to substantive NWC members though they are not members of the NWC themselves.
The committee’s first meeting scheduled for Tuesday is said to be causing some anxiety as the contending forces are unaware what it may come up with.
The resignation of the officers as well as the open verbal attack on Secondus by PDP National Youth Leader, Sunday Udeh-Okoye sparked the crisis, which the BoT scrambled to nip in the bud last week.
While the national officers who resigned accused the NWC of sidelining them, Udeh-Okoye accused Secondus of incompetence and called for his resignation.
Party insiders fingered Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers state as being the brain behind the crisis, accusing him of wanting to push out Secondus and instituting a national caretaker committee to oversee the conduct of PDP’s December national convention.
Worried by the apparent escalating friction between the party boss and Wike and its possible impact on the PDP’s preparations for the 2023 general election, the BoT summoned last week’s meeting, which could not immediately reconcile both party chieftains.
Party sources affirmed that most members of the board were not comfortable with the idea of dissolving the NWC and setting up a caretaker committee as allegedly being pushed for by Wike with the national convention just about three months away.
Governors elected under the party are also now scheduled to meet in Abuja today (Monday) in furtherance of the effort to reconcile the feuding parties.
The meeting, scheduled to hold at the Akwa Ibom Government Lodge, is expected to attract all governors in the party and it is an initiative of the chairman of the PDP Governors Forum (PDP-GF) and Sokoto State governor, Aminu Tambuwal.
However, two stalwarts of the party: Chief Olabode George and Alhaji Mukhtar Shehu Shagari warned against the danger in allowing the crisis to fester, even as the former called for the immediate setting up of a national convention committee with no role assigned to the current national PDP leadership.
A party source, however, told the Nigerian Tribune that it might be difficult to settle the rift between Governor Wike and Prince Secondus.
The source revealed that the politics of 2023 in Rivers and Abuja, is at the heart of the face-off between the two chieftains of the party.
On the local politics of Rivers, the source said: “People from the Upland have been governing the state and Governor Wike is starting to install another chieftain from that area to succeed him. The national chairman of the party, Uche Secondus wants a Riverine person to be given consideration.
In fairness to Secondus, he doesn’t have anyone in mind now but he believes there should be fairness.
“Wike to foreclose the seat from going to the riverine is smarting to install somebody from the Riverine area as successor to the incumbent PDP chairman of the party in the state, Ambassador Desmond Akwawor, who is from Upland.”
The source who confessed that the Current Secretary to State Government, Rivers State, Honourable Tammy Danagogo from riverine is an anointed candidate of Governor Wike, however, said he might be edged out before the party primary next year.
Aside the local Rivers politics is the permutation towards the 2023 Presidential ticket of the main opposition party.
Checks revealed that Governor Wike is keeping his plan to his chest but he is believed to be aspiring for the exalted positions of president or vice president, depending on where the pendulum tilts in terms of zoning of the presidential ticket.
PDP wobbling disastrously, Olabode George warns
However, George, who is a former deputy national chairman and member of the BoT of PDP, expressed deep concern over the crisis rocking the main opposition party, warning on the grave implications.
According to him, the crisis was as a result of inept leadership and reign of impunity that has characterized the running of the PDP since the inception of the current national leadership.
George who spoke to journalists, called on the National Executive Committee (NEC) of the party to quickly set up a national convention committee to organise congresses and convention that will lead to election of new party officers but with the current leaders not playing any role because they are believed to be planning to contest again.
“My own take is that the PDP platform is wobbling, wobbling disastrously because of the poor management of the leadership. It has created and veered off the constitution of the party. They have turned it into a private enterprise,” he stated.
“There is nothing private; there is no personal ambition in this thing. It is either we do it right or we will all collapse into the hell. Nigerians are now watching for an alternative. Yet, our platform is still wobbling. It is the future of our children and our country. You can see where we are today as a country.
“If they want the party to survive, they must rise above pettiness and blighted ambition, otherwise the future of PDP is endangered.”
“The constitution is the grund norm of the party. Those who are there now think they can do whatever suits or pleases them.
“They should immediately set up a national convention committee, who will run all the congresses from the ward level to the national level. It is not these people that are there because some of them want to contest.
“The committee should be set up by the National Executive Committee of the PDP because after convention, it is the NEC that is empowered to do it. We have missed the road from the moment they assumed office as they veered into a wrong direction. So, let is bring somebody back, who can stabilise the party; who will now arrange and prepare for all the congresses from the ward level.”
Stakeholders should put national interest above other considerations —Shagari
On his part, a former minister and one-time deputy governor of Sokoto State, Alhaji Mukhtar Shehu Shagari cautioned stakeholders involved in the current muscle-flexing in the PDP to put the interest of the nation above other considerations because Nigerians looked up to the party to rescue the country from its current predicaments.
“It is imperative that we put the interest of the party, our teeming supporters and the nation over and above personal interest. At this critical moment of national pain horror of insecurity and economic crisis, Nigerians are looking up to PDP for rescue.
“Let us unite and take over power in 2023 for without power in our hands, we cannot do much for the nation. Please put the nation and the people first,” he said.
Secondus must Go —PDP Frontliners
Concerned members of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) known as’ PDP Frontliners’ have joined the call for the immediate resignation of Secondus.
Addressing a press conference in Kaduna at the weekend, the leader of the group, Husseini Muhammed along with the secretary, Moses Abidemi and publicity secretary, Dan Okador, noted that the significance of a national party such as the PDP far surpassed any individual’s agenda to perpetuate himself in office.
Therefore, he said the only option for the national chairman of the party was to vacate his office.
He claimed that inspite of the demand he should go due to an unimpressive performance in the face of limited challenges, ‘Mr. Secondus is much eager to remain in office rather than allow vibrant changes that will prepare the party for electoral victory in 2023.’
He was miffed that rather than stem the membership hemorrhage of the PDP in favour of the ruling APC, Secondus choses to preside over a situation of growing anarchy that may hinder PDP’s reconciliation process and rob the party of great chances in 2023.
“Instead of being allowed to sit pretty over an imagined fiefdom, Secondus who ought to have gone a long time, must go now.
“He has never proven to have any capacity for being a political war general and his laissez-faire style of leadership during preparations for the 2023 general elections can only culminate into really atrocious results.
“We appreciate his past contributions towards building PDP but in the face of current realities, Mr Secondus needs to rethink his insistence about continued leadership of PDP; he should also consider public repudiation of alleged moves to lobby some party leaders for an extension of his tenure,” they stated.
PDP reconciles Anambra aggrieved aspirants
Meanwhile, the PDP-GF has reconciled aspirants in the Anambra state gubernatorial election preventing the rumored defection of Senator Uche Ekwunife to the All Progressive Congress (APC) from materialising.
The reconciliation was done by the Governor Ahmadu Fintiri-led committee set up for the purpose.
Ekwunife came third at the primary election won by Valentine Ozigbo while Obiora Okonkwo came second.
The Adamawa governor said at a press briefing in Abuja, on Sunday, that following the reconciliation, she has now been appointed the director general of the Anambra state PDP Governorship Election Campaign.
Fintiri said: “We carried out the directives of our governors and reconciled all the aggrieved aspirants and it was unanimously agreed that Senator Uche Ekwunife be appointed the campaign Director and she is so appointed.”
He said with Ekwunife’s appointment, the PDP’s campaign to recapture Anambra state has begun in earnest.
“Anambra state belongs to the PDP and this will be confirmed at the November 6 governorship election,” he said.
In her acceptance remark, Senator Ekwunife restated her commitment to the PDP and to ensure victory for the party in the election.
Also speaking, the PDP gubernatorial candidate, Ozigbo, said that with the successful reconciliation of the aspirants, the PDP is set to take over the state.
He affirmed that the state had always been a PDP state with two senators and almost all the members of the State House of Assembly elected under the platform.
He pledged to continue with the reconciliation process on his return to the state from Abuja.
There was no word on Ugochukwu Uba, who is also claiming the governorship ticket of the party in the November 6 election.
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