BREAKING NEWS, Political Briefs
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THE National Working Committee, NWC, of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, has shunned a directive by the party’s governors asking Uche Secondus, acting national chairman, to hand over to Wale Oladipo, national secretary of the party.
The governors, in a communiqué at the end of a meeting in Abuja on Wednesday, January 27, ordered Secondus to hand over to Oladipo, pending the emergence of a substantive chairman from the North-East zone.
The communiqué read by Olusegun Mimiko, governor of Ondo State, frowned at the refusal of Secondus to respect the judgment of an Abuja high court, ordering him to vacate the office for a member from the North-East.
“We take cognisance of the judgment by the court in Abuja, which ordered the acting chairman to vacate office for any other person from the Northeast.
“Our party constitution has enough provisions for that and the necessary process has been put in motion,” the communiqué said.
The governors also condemned the action of Ahmed Ali Gulak, former political adviser to former President Goodluck Jonathan, who allegedly invaded the party secretariat, where he declared himself national chairman without recourse to the appropriate organs of the party.
According to the governors, the issue of the chairmanship of the party would soon be resolved to enable someone from the North-East complete the tenure of Adamu Muazu, the last national chairman, who resigned in May, last year over poor performance of the party in the 2015 general elections.
But a statement issued on Thursday, January 28 by Victor Kwom, national legal adviser of the PDP, insisted that Secondus remained the acting chairman.
The statement said: “The NWC of the PDP wishes to assure members of the party nationwide that there has not been any change in the leadership of the party at the national level.
“For the avoidance of doubt, the statutory organs of the party, the NWC, national caucus, BoT and NEC will be meeting next week to deliberate on developments, including the replacement, from the Northeast of Alhaji Adamu Muazu, who resigned as the national chairman of the party.”
The statement said that the replacement would be in strict adherence to the party’s constitution, as specified in Section 47(6):
“Until then, the status quo remains, which means the Deputy National Chairman, Prince Uche Secondus, remains as the acting national chairman.
“Furthermore, it must be reiterated that relevant stakeholders of our party, including the PDP Governor’s Forum, National Caucus and the Board of Trustees (BoT) as well as our leadership structures at all levels are united behind the National Working Committee in the efforts to rebuild, reposition and strengthen our party for the challenges ahead.”
The NWC further said that the leadership of the party remained focused and would not be distracted by the “unpatriotic actions” of Gulak.
— Feb 8, 2016 @ 01:00 GMT
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