The crisis rocking the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, deepened as the Adamawa State Chapter of the party, yesterday, endorsed a former
governor of the defunct Gongola State, Ambassador Wilberforce B. Juta, as its candidate for the position of the National Chairman of the party.
According to the stakeholders, Juta was chosen from Adamawa after very wide consultations to complete the tenure of the North East which became vacant following the resignation of Alhaji Adamu Muazu after the party lost the 2015 presidential election to the All Progressives Congress, APC.
A former Political Adviser to erstwhile President Goodluck Jonathan, Ahmed Gulak, a contender for the PDP national chairmanship, was apparently locked out of the meeting where the decision was taken. In a reaction, Gulak, however, said that any decision taken by the PDP State Working Committee, SWC, National Working Committee, NEC, or the National Executive Committee, NEC, outside him would be “null and void and of no effect whatsoever” except if he was accepted in line with a court judgment.
According to him, the 14 days given by a High Court for the acting National Chairman, Prince Uche Secondus, to vacate the seat had expired without the party consulting to fashion out a way of replacing Secondus from the region, adding that party members in the North-East were in dilemma over the issue of replacement until he made a case.
Speaking with journalists yesterday in Abuja, Gulak’s spokesperson, Hon. Bernard Mikko, said, “The PDP leaders have turned themselves into administrative officers. After the three months constitutionally allowed to act had expired, the party leadership failed to do the right thing. So the window of 14 days has been closed for both the party and the North-east to nominate another person other than Gulak.
“Any attempt to bring another person will be illegal. It is contempt of court for the North-East zonal chairman to go ahead and say he is holding a meeting to send a replacement from the region. We are trying to bring sanity to the party. We will hold them for contempt of court”.
