PDP sinks deeper

Secondus

Peoples Democratic Party’s crisis has deepened over leadership disagreements both at the national level and in many state chapters, reports Assistant Editor, Dare Odufowokan

The move by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to put its house in order, following the party’s devastating defeat by the ruling All Peoples Congress (APC) in the 2015 general elections, appears to be threatened going by recent developments within the party.

Sources within the party told The Nation that the Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu-led reconciliation committee, saddled with the task of returning the troubled party to its united ways, may have been forced by the unending infighting within the PDP to abandon the task.

The Nation gathered that the committee, for which Secretary of the party, Board of Trustees, Senator Walid Jubrin, was expected to serve as secretary, while Senator Godswill Akpabio; Gombe State Governor, Ibrahim Dankwambo, and former Abia State governor, Senator Theodore Orji, are members, has not had any serious meeting since the emergence of Prince Uche Secondus as the acting party chairman.

This is just as the party’s National Working Committee, the camp of former President Goodluck Jonathan and the party’s ex-governors continued to trade blames over which organ of the party was responsible for the party’s dismal performance.

A leading chieftain of the party from Kebbi State told our correspondent that the current leadership of the party cannot bring peace to the party because it is illegal. According to the former Deputy Governor, Secondus’ continued stay in office as Acting Chairman is unconstitutional and offensive to the collective sense of committed PDP members across the country.

“We must stop paying lip service to peace and rejuvenation in PDP. Unless we address certain fundamental issues, like the unconstitutional leadership foisted on the party by some selfish individuals; we will be unable to witness real peace in the party.

“Our constitution didn’t provide for a lengthy stay for any Acting Chairman. But what do we have now? Secondus’ continued stay in office as Acting Chairman is unconstitutional and offensive to the collective sense of committed PDP members across the country.

“The peace committee is stalled because the members are divided over the legality of the party’s leadership. I can tell you authoritatively that some of us, unlike others, cannot be cowed to keep quiet while illegality continues in our great party. This is the time to revamp PDP and we cannot do it through an illegal leadership,” he insisted.

Trouble in Wadata House

Secondus, erstwhile Deputy National Chairman of the PDP, stepped in as the Acting National Chairman of the party last May when the then National Chairman of the party, Adamu Mu’azu, tendered his letter of resignation. Back then, the party said Secondus will lead the party pending the time a replacement for Muazu would be found from the North-East.

But party sources alleged that the NWC of the party may have been scuttling all efforts to get a substantive chairman from Muazu’ geo-political zone. The Nation learnt that several attempts have been made by party leaders and caucuses from the north to get the party to address the issue to no avail.

Tired of waiting, prominent party chieftains recently met in Abuja and decided to go all out to ensure an end to Secondus’ stay in office. Expectedly, a faction of the NWC, loyal to the acting chairman, also vowed to have none of the attempts to change the leadership of the party.

Consequently, the national leadership of the troubled party has been thrown into a fresh crisis that many observers say may finally nail its chances to return to prominence in the nearest future.

The ongoing tussle blew open last week when a former aide of ex-President Goodluck Jonathan, Ahmed Gulak, stormed the Wadata House headquarters of the PDP in Abuja and asked Secondus to vacate the seat. Accusing the Acting National Chairman of illegality, Gulak said he was in the secretariat to take over the seat of the National Chairman.

Gulak told journalists that he had informed members of the National Working Committee of the PDP that Secondus should leave office immediately. He said he had submitted a letter to the NWC, informing the members that another person from the North-East should replace Mu’azu.

He said, “My visit was to bring in writing to the notice of the party my intention to replace the former National Chairman of the party, after his voluntary resignation”.

“As a member, and by virtue of the constitution, I know there’s a vacancy. So, it needs to be filled and I’m here to fill it. We need vibrant, bold and courageous leadership in PDP.

“The resignation of the former chairman was done voluntarily. And maybe due to the disastrous outing of the party in the last elections, he decided to resign as a man who wants to take responsibility for his actions.

“The position of the constitution is that when a principal officer of the party resigns, the replacement should come from the zone from which the former person had come.”

Early signs that trouble awaits Secondus over the national chairmanship position emerged about two weeks ago, when a former Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Mallam Bala Mohammed, had gone to Ado Ekiti to ask for Governor Ayodele Fayose’s support to become the PDP National Chairman.

The former FCT minister, also from the same Bauchi State like Mu’azu, had told Fayose that he should be allowed to complete the former national chairman’s tenure. According to him, it is wrong for the party to look the other way while the South-South, through Secondus, serves out the term meant for the North-East.

Introducing another angle to the festering crisis, Fayose, however told the ex-FCT minister that it was the turn of the South-West to produce the chairman of the PDP at the national level.

The Ekiti governor said Mohammed should go to his ward and start rebuilding the party, saying there was no need for a substantive National Chairman now and that Secondus should be allowed to finish Mu’azu’s tenure, which should end in March 2016.

But while insisting the North-East should complete Muazu’s term, Gulak frowned at Fayose’s suggestion that the South-West should produce the next National Chairman of the party, saying that the governor must be ignorant of the party’s constitution.

“Fayose should avail his mind to the provisions of the party’s constitution. This, if he had, he should have known that a replacement for the resigned chairman should come from the North-East. I didn’t say so, the party’s constitution did. If the National Secretary had resigned, then it would have been natural for the successor to come from the South-West,” he argued.

But, the party’s National Legal Adviser, Mr. Victor Kwon, cautioned Gulak to tread softly as there was no time limit for Secondus to remain at the head of the party. He cited relevant sections of the party’s constitution to buttress the NWC position.

“Section 47(6) of the party’s constitution enables the NEC to, in the event of any vacancy, nominate somebody to occupy the position. And there is really no time limit under second 45 (2) where an Acting National Chairman may cease to act. So, it is still within the constitutional provision that the Acting National Chairman continues in his capacity until a congress is called by the NEC and a nomination is made thereto,” he said.

But the PDP National Publicity Secretary, Mr. Olisa Metuh, created further confusion on the matter when he said the party’s NWC was waiting for the Ekweremadu-led Committee’ report before it could call for a NEC meeting.

“We are waiting for Ekweremadu-led committee report to know the next step to take. The decision to either make an appointment from anywhere lies with the NEC,” Metuh told reporters.

“And that is the same Ekweremadu-led committee that has stopped meeting following differences amongst its members on this same issue of who should lead the party. You can now see why the party is still far from real peace,” a party source told The Nation.

Troubled state chapters

The PDP is also battling crisis and factionalisation in many of its state chapters. From Lagos to Bayelsa; Anambra to Kogi; Ekiti to Ondo, amongst other states, the party seems to be unable to hold its peace as its chieftains and members remain at dagger-drawn in spite of many truces arranged by the national leadership.

Trouble bell keeps tolling for the embattled chairman of the Lagos State chapter of the PDP, Captain Olatunji Shelle, as 35 of the 49 members of the party’s National Working Committee (NWC) has signed a petition seeking his removal for the second time. Shelle was recently re-instated by the party’s NWC following his removal by party stakeholders in the state few months back.

A chieftain of the party, Wahab Owokoniran, said the vote of confidence claimed to have been passed on Shelle was by fewer than 14 of the 49 members of the executive committee.

“Nothing can be achieved when majority of the party members and executives are aggrieved and we are urging the public to disregard his posture as the Chairman noting that until the NWC takes a decision and intervenes, it is a graveyard peace,” Owokoniran said.

Meanwhile, the chairman of a faction of the party, Kamaldeen Olorunoje, insisted he is the substantive chairman. He said only few members of the party were still behind Shelle. He declared that there is no way his group, being the majority, would sit together with those in the minority and led by Shelle.

Olorunoje, who recalled that both himself and Shelle had appeared before the State Commissioner of Police to pledge to keep the peace, said it was now clear that the Shelle group had broken the accord by forcing themselves into the secretariat for the said exercise of confidence vote on Shelle.

While he insisted that he was not prepared to sit down with Shelle to resolve anything as enjoined by the NWC, Olorunoje, however, expressed his willingness to appear before the national leadership of PDP any time he and his group were summoned to do so.

“You should have asked him to show you the letter the NWC wrote to him on the crisis. They asked him to bring peace to the party by calling everybody together. We are not sitting with him. There is no way those in majority would sit together with, or bow to the wishes of those in minority,” he said.

As the state prepares for its governorship election, the crisis in Bayelsa State PDP has worsened, following last month’s defection of its Chairman, late Col. Sam Inokoba (retd), and many others to the All Progressives Congress (APC).

The late Inokoba had shocked the troubled party when he led about 2,000 PDP members to the APC on Saturday at a mega rally at the Samson Siasia Sports Complex in Yenagoa, the state capital.

The PDP in the state had come out to say Inokoba and his co-travelers’ exit will bring peace to the party. But a scathing statement on Inokoba and the defectors, credited to PDP’s Acting Chairman in the state, Serena Dokubo, is the bone of contention in a fresh crisis that is tearing the party apart.

According to reports, Dokubo said Inokoba was suspended on alleged corruption and anti-party activity. The acting party chairman described the defectors as spent forces without electoral value.

But a group in the state’s PDP, Bayelsa Great House (BGH), condemned the statement ascribed to Dokubo. It accused him of instigating and deepening the party’s crisis. BGH’s Chairman, Ebinimi Owei, and Secretary, Victor Woyinkuro, said Inokoba took the right decision by leaving “confused persons, liars, greedy and desperate politicians in the PDP under the Restoration Government for the APC”.

Owei accused Dokubo of doubling as an Acting Chairman of PDP and an employee of the Judiciary Commission. The BGH chief reminded the party chairman that Governor Seriake Dickson, during a PDP meeting at the Government House on July 30, attended by Acting National Chairman, Uche Secondus; National Secretary, Dr. Abila, acknowledged that Inokoba did not steal the party’s money.

“We implore Serena Dokubo to face reality because PDP Bayelsa is sinking every moment he engages in lies, deceit and other cheap political propaganda.

“We therefore state that Governor Dickson should hold Serena Dokubo and Fynman Wilson responsible if he fails the governorship election, which is very clear. The PDP is never an Ijaw party,” the group said.

In Anambra State, the recent emergence of Ken Emeakayi as the state chairman has thrown the party into chaos as some factions, including that of former governor Peter Obi, insist he cannot lead the troubled party in the state.

The immediate past governor’s spokesman and former commissioner for information and culture, Joe-Martins Uzodike, told journalists in Awka recently that they were not part of the whole exercise that produced Emeakayi.

Another faction, led by Comrade Tony Nwoye, also inaugurated a parallel state council and ward executive committees after resolving to reject the Emeakayi-led committee till the very end.

Uzodike told journalists at the special thanksgiving service at St Luke’s Anglican Church, Uke, for Ubaka Emmanuel Onwuanibe for his successful four-year tenure as the pioneer Director-General of Ebonyi State Broadcasting Service: “We are never part of what is going on right now. This is because we do not associate with crisis-torn body.”

He said the only remedy is for all the feuding groups to come to a round table, seek peace, reconcile and spell out their terms of relationship in further pursuit of general peace.

Ahead of the 2016 governorship election in the sunshine state, there is palpable fear that the camp of the ruling PDP in Ondo State may soon be depleted as the former governorship candidate of the party, Chief Olusola Oke, and other prominent leaders may soon announce their defection to the All Progressives Congress (APC).

Since the defection of Governor Olusegun Mimiko to PDP from Labour Party (LP), the party has been in disarray, which later affected its performance in the last Presidential and National Assembly polls.

In spite of plea from former President Goodluck Jonathan that Oke and Mimiko should unite, the duo operated parallel rallies for Jonathan’s re-elections and remained political enemies till now.

Oke’s camp has been unhappy over the imposition of candidates on them by Mimiko immediately after he decamped to the party.

“Should Oke defect to APC, there is going to be major crack in PDP here in Ondo. This is because he is the soul of PDP in the state. Mimiko is a stranger in PDP. Oke is the man who held the party afloat when they all left it to die,” a party source told The Nation.