Kogi SDP Chair Declares Ajaka Faction Stakeholders Meeting Illegal

Chairman of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) in Kogi State, Moses Oricha, has declared the meeting of the party allegedly called by one Ahmed Attah and attended by the party’s governorship candidate in the 2023 election, Muritala Ajaka, as fraudulent, illegal and an affront on the constitution of the SDP.

Recall that the SDP in Kogi state has been engulfed in a leadership crisis in the last one year with two groups laying claim to the State Working Committee(SWC).

Oricha called on the Ajaka faction to tread with caution, saying the so-called stakeholders’ meeting was an effort in futility as those behind it were not the executives of the party in the state.

In a statement issued in Lokoja yesterday, he said the Certified True Copy (CTC), report from the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) headquarters in Abuja, had invalidated the purported congress which allegedly produced Attah and Abdulrahaman Idris as party executives.

The Kogi state SDP chairman said with that report, it is therefore illegal for the duo of Attah and Idris to address themselves as executives of the party anywhere.

He insisted that for the avoidance of doubt, INEC in the report specifically said “when INEC officials arrived the venue of the said congress, no body was found and no list of delegates or contestants was made available to the monitoring team from the commission.

According to the chairman, the Commission in its report therefore concluded that there was no congress to have produced any executive committee, calling on Attah and Idris to desist from playing on the intelligence of the people and desperate politicians.

Oricha reaffirmed that the party under his leadership is the only recognised structure in the state and further warned those he described as impostors to stay clear of the affairs of the party.

He maintained that the national leadership of the party’s recognition of the existing structures across the country had since laid to rest the issue of another executive committee anywhere and asked members to disregard those parading themselves as new party executives from “a kangaroo
congress not recognised by the party hierarchy, INEC and the party constitution.”

Oricha said; “if the candidate of the party in the last governorship election in the state, Alhaji Muritala Yakubu Ajaka truly meant well for the party and the same structure that made him the candidate, then he should follow the law and the constitution of the party and should not allow himself to be use against the same structures that made him the candidate because the people of Kogi State and Nigerians at large are watching his true kind of person.

“As the adage said ‘don’t bite the finger that feeds you’. This same set of people have been romancing with ADC leadership where pictorial evidence have shown how they attended meetings with David Mark, El-rufai and others. Who is deceiving who?

Some members of the Kogi state SDP believed to be loyal to Ajaka, on Saturday convened a meeting to dissociate themselves from the recent coalition of opposition parties, which adopted the African Democratic Congress, (ADC) as their platform.

The factional chairman of SDP in the state, Attah who addressed the gathering, said they arrived at this conclusion after a wide consultation meeting held with the party chairmen in the 21 local government areas, adding that notable stakeholders of the SDP were in attendance.