PDP Governors Meet Today Ahead Of NEC

Governors elected on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) will meet today to conclude on the holding of the much-anticipated National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting of the party, which is expected to resolve the agitation over the national chairman position.

A source confided in LEADERSHIP that the governors summoned the PDP national chairman, Illiya Damagum and the party’s secretary, Senator Samuel Anyanwu, to the meeting.

A source said the governors would seek to insist on holding the NEC to address protests from the North Central zone over the national chairman seat.

The NEC meeting will also review the complaints that trailed the recent congresses.

“The governors invited the party chairman and the secretary to the meeting to brief them on the activities within the party and in preparation for the NEC meeting. They will also be briefed about the recently conducted congresses, which have attracted a lot of concern from party leaders,” the source said.

Today’s meeting, which comes barely a week after the governors met via Zoom over the split within the National Working Committee (NWC), also comes ahead of the NEC meeting fixed for October 24.

Party leaders from the North Central have been calling for Damagum to revert to his deputy national chairmanship position and allow their zone to produce Senator Iyorchia Ayu’s replacement as substantive national chairman.

So far, the top contenders for the position are former governor of Benue State, Senator Gabriel Suswam, Emmanuel Agbo and Conrad Utaan.

While the party’s Board of Trustees (BoT) had called for the NEC to hold as scheduled, the chairman of the governors’ forum, Bala Mohammed of Bauchi State, had last week maintained that a meeting would be held to determine when the NEC will hold.

At last week’s meeting, the governors had, after two days of deliberation via Zoom, asked the warring camps within the party’s NWC to return to the status quo and squash the suspension battle that has raged on for the past three days.

The governors also nullified the suspensions of the acting national chairman of the party, Illiya Damagum, and the party’s secretary, Senator Samuel Anyanwu, as well as the suspensions of the national publicity secretary, Debo Ologunagba, and national legal adviser, Kamaldeen Ajibade.

Meanwhile, the national public secretary of PDP, Hon. Debo Ologunagba, has faulted the statement by the APC national chairman, Umar Ganduje, that the APC will capture Ondo State and use it to reclaim Oyo and Osun states.

Ologunagba said the people of Ondo State are ready to vote for the PDP, and any attempt to cow them would be resisted.

He said, “I just feel I should have this conversation to react to the reckless and irresponsible statement by the chairman of the All Progressive Congress, which was credited to him in Ondo State, wherein he said that the APC is set to capture Ondo and then use that as a gateway to capture Oyo and Osun states.

“And these are the statements that we have seen over the months, talking about totalitarianism and one-party state in this country.

“If you look at the dictionary meaning of capture, and I just checked it, it says, to take by force or strategy, take prisoners. So what he’s saying is that he’s going to take the South West state and its people as prisoners of war.  So, for us, it is troubling.

“But this is a warning. The people of the Southwest have a vibrant history, are very strong-willed, are politically educated, and know what they want. Anybody who is a history student will recognise that the South West has always been a bastion for democratic rights.

“In the old Oyo Empire, there are controls for the Oba, the Alaafin of Oyo; so whenever he is acting away from the people, they can tell him to go and commit suicide as a control. So for anybody, Ganduje, for that matter, to come into Ondo State and say those reckless things calls for the attention of Nigerians and the international community to know that he is a threat to democracy.

“In 1983, you will recall, when the recklessness of the then NPN continued in this manner, and unfortunately, it looks like history was repeating itself – when they tried to impose Omoboruwuyi as governor of Oyo State by rigging the election. The consequences can again be traced to what ended that Republic in 1983. So, we are warning the APC; this is a warning directly to Ganduje.

“And to Ganduje, he should be careful about the West because he could be declared a persona non grata in the Southwest for this recklessness.”

The APC should know, and I’m sure some of the leaders of APC recognise that, and they should stay away from Ondo State. The election of November 16 in Ondo State is an entirely different ball game. The people of Ondo State are ready; they are set to vote for the PDP, and any attempt, having regard to the history of the Ondo people, you can’t cow them, and you cannot suppress them from whatever they believe in.”

He urged the APC to allow free and fair election in Ondo State.

Also, the National Reconciliation Committee of the PDP, led by Olagunsoye Oyinlola, has said any talk of suspension coming from it is a rumour.

Oyinlola, who stated this at the PDP national secretariat in Abuja, said the party is having valuable discussions with the party caucus on their experiences regarding the causes of its dwindling fortunes.

He said, “One obvious thing is that for any party to go into battle and win, they must be united. And that’s what we are going for.”