The crisis rocking the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has deepened with governors on the platform of the party telling the acting National Chairman, Prince Uche Secondus, to resign and hand over to the National Secretary, Prof. Wale Oladipo.
But members of the National Working Committee (NWC) said the governors are talking nonsense.
In fact, they told Secondus not to resign because there is no change in national leadership.
A prominent elder of the party, who spoke with Freedom Online on Thursday, said “the Governors Forum and NWC are wrong because they are just arrogating powers to themselves. The Forum is just an association not recognised by our constitution and the NWC also does not have the power to tell Secondus to go or not to. What the NWC members should have done is to go to NEC, the second most powerful body of our party after the Convention.
“Secondus, Metuh (Olisa), even Victor Kwon, who signed the NWC statement and others really messed the party up during the 2015 elections. The matter will be resolved at the appropriate time”, he said.
The governors, after their meeting in Abuja, directed Secondus to hand over to Oladipo.
They said this was in line with the provisions of the party’s constitution.
This position was contained in a communique issued at the end of a meeting of the governors under the platform of the PDP Governors’ Forum in Abuja on Wednesday.
The governors also chided a former Special Adviser on Political Matters to former President Goodluck Jonathan, Alhaji Ahmed Gulak, for invading the party’s National Secretariat in Abuja to declare himself the party’s national chairman.
But the NWC insisted there was no change in the leadership composition of the party at the national level.
This is contained in a statement on Thursday in Abuja, by Mr Victor Kwon, the PDP National Legal Adviser.
Kwon assured members and supporters of PDP that Secondus remains the Acting National Chairman of PDP.
“For the avoidance of doubt, the statutory organs of the party, the NWC, National Caucus, Board of Trustees (BoT) and the National Executive Council (NEC) will be meeting next week.
“They will meet to deliberate on some developments, including the replacement, from the North-East of Alhaji Adamu Muazu, who resigned as the National Chairman of the party.”
Kwon said that the replacement would be in strict adherence to the provisions of the constitution of PDP 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.
“It must be reiterated that all relevant stakeholders of our party, including the PDP Governors’ Forum, National Caucus and the Board of Trustees (BoT) as well as our leadership structures at all levels are united behind the current NWC.
“They are all united behind the current NWC in the efforts to rebuild, reposition and strengthen our party for the challenges ahead.”
