• Party’s NWC mandates state chairmen to compile list of offenders

From Ndubuisi Orji, Abuja

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has directed the state chairmen to submit their reports on investigations into alleged anti-party activities by some of its members during the 2023 general election.

The party’s National Organising Secretary, Umar Bature, stated this during the PDP National Working Committee (NWC) meeting with the state chairmen in Abuja, yesterday.

Bature directed the state chairmen to put their reports in written form for appropriate actions to be taken by the party leadership.

“A lot of agitations are coming from party members, saying, suspend this, suspend that, but you are the ones that are in charge of those states.

“You are to tell us who engaged in anti-party activities and who did not. Based on that, the National Executive Committee (NEC) will take a decision. Write to us and tell us what transpired, no matter what happened.

“I also want the acting chairman to call on the chairman of the party in Cross River to tell us what is happening in the state. We really need to know what is happening,” he said.

Bature said after the 2023 general election, the NWC expected the state chapters to submit their post election results.

He said many states were yet to submit their reports. He recalled that most of the current executives in the states were elected four years ago, where congresses were conducted on a staggered basis due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We have about four or five states, where tenures of the executive have expired from the ward to the state. They are Edo, Bayelsa, Gombe and Rivers stated; there are others, which are staggered.

“We called the meeting to discuss this in order not to create a vacuum. We also have vacancies due to deaths and resignations,” he said.

Speaking after the meeting, the PDP chairman in Kaduna State, Mr. Felix Hyet, said a resolution was taken for the state chapters to work together with all stakeholders for the victory of the party in 2027.

Hyet said state chairmen resolved to support the Edo and Ondo chapters for victory in the forthcoming governorship elections in the states.

The NWC later had a closed-door meeting with the party’s stakeholders from Ondo.

Prior to the 2023 general, the PDP was engulfed in crisis, following the emergence of former Vice President Atiku Abubakar and former Delta State Governor, Ifeanyi Okowa, as presidential and vice presidential candidates of the party.

A group of five governors led by then governor of Rivers State, Nyesom Wike, and their supporters had publicly identified with the All Progressives Congress ( APC) presidential candidate in the 2023 polls, President Bola Tinubu, against the PDP’s presidential candidate.

Apart from Wike, the other five aggrieved governors were Samuel Ortom, Benue; Okezie Ikpeazu, Abia; Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi, Enugu; and Seyi Makinde of Oyo State.

Consequently, the PDP lost the presidential election in Rivers, Benue, Abia, Enugu and Oyo states. In the aftermath of the poll, there have been calls by some stakeholders for sanctions on anyone proven to have worked against the opposition party in last year’s general elections.