The embattled National Chairman of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), Alhaji Shehu Gabam, has said that he remained in charge of the party’s affairs.
According to Gabam, talks around the coalition to wrestle power from APC on 2027, were behind the crisis that has rocked the SDP, adding that he was still the National Chairman of the party.
Gabam also debunked his purported suspension from office, describing it as “fake news”, which should be disregarded.
Speaking with journalists at the National Secretariat of the party in Abuja on Tuesday, along with the members of the National Working Committee (NWC) of the party over his purported suspension, Gabam said, “I remain the National Chairman of the SDP, as you can see.”
He explained that such a decision was not taken at an official meeting of the party’s NWC and wondered where the statement originated from.
He further explained that a private legal firm had approached the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and requested a meeting of the party’s NWC, but the Commission rejected the request.
According to him, “the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) tagged the request by the party’s National Secretary to hold a National Working Committee (NWC) meeting as illegal since it didn’t have my signature.”
Gabam also lamented that the coalition, which wanted to destroy the SDP because it couldn’t have it, was masterminding the crisis in the party.
According to him, “I think we had this crisis before. It is now rearing its head. Some of us understand where it is coming from because this coalition and some people in the coalition believe that, at all cost, they either get SDP or create confusion around SDP. So many forces from so many fronts see SDP as deadly or very, very strong that they cannot manoeuvre it.”
Gabam, however, appealed to President Bola Tinubu to call the nation’s security agencies to order so that politicians would not use them to truncate democracy.
He said, “This is very, very dangerous for our democracy. The country is gone whenever we have leaders who don’t want to accommodate a dissenting voice. Democracy will disappear.
“We hope and I pray the president and commander-in-chief will not allow this anarchy to continue. He will call people to order. Security agencies are somehow being used remotely to support this kind of thing.
“They are not doing me a disservice. It’s a disservice to the country,” Gabam said, pointing out that those accusing him of financial misappropriation should remember that they’re the ones who raised memos and that all their names were in the party’s account statement.
He said, “I’m sure by the time we submit the complete printout of our account from the banks to the security agencies, they will see everything. They will see everyone whose money has gone into his account—all the NWC members. It has not excluded anybody.
“He (Agunloye) was once the chairman of the party. He should have also accounted for his tenure when he was party chairman. I’m ready to account for my tenure any minute, any time,” he added.
Hee also stated that the crisis was long overdue and that they had been expecting it.
“We expected this crisis for quite a while. First, we’ve been waiting for them to expose their entire game plan before we respond to it. Happily enough, they have officially exposed themselves today.
LEADERSHIP reports that Rufus Ayegbeni, the party’s National Publicity Secretary, earlier announced in a statement that Gabam and other party members had been suspended from the SDP.
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