A member of the House of Representatives, representing Ideato Federal Constituency, Mr Ikenga Ugochinyere, yesterday, said two governors and 40 lawmakers are prepared to defect from the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, in the coming weeks.
Ugochinyere expressed dismay over the lingering crisis in
the PDP, saying rather than act, the party leaders kept mute and allowed the
situation to fester.
Addressing newsmen in Akokwa in Ideato North, Imo State, the
lawmaker called on the party’s National Working Committee, NWC, to expel Samuel
Anyanwu and the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Nyesom Wike, from
the PDP.
He said: “I must also inform you that I have also confirmed
that 40 lawmakers elected on the platform of the party are going to decamp from
the party in the coming weeks. Look at the state in which we are today.
Lawmakers are decamping in mass. Governors are decamping. Two extra governors
are about to decamp. I can confirm this.”
“You are the one that is encouraging them both in Delta and
everywhere to decamp, yet you open your mouth to say our faith is in God’s
hand. You are sitting in a position that you have no legal rights to sit. It’s
on this point I want to alert our party members that Damagum and Anyanwu have
once again perfected a new plot to ensure that the NEC meeting of May to where
these issues would be rectified does not hold. They have also perfected a plot
to ensure that the August convention is aborted if they will not be the ones to
be re-elected.
“I need to give our party members information that they have
perfected a plan, a very ridiculous one and insulting, to re-elect Damagum and
Anyanwu as officers of the party in August. Where that is not possible and
where they cannot get a stooge, they will ensure that the convention is
aborted. This is so painful. Damagum is still sitting and saying that our faith
is in God’s hands. Let me call on the members of the NWC that the whole world
is watching them and if they want to be taken seriously two critical things
must be done.
“One, the unconditional expulsion of Samuel Anyanwu and
Nyesom Wike from the party. Are we cowards? This is the demand of stakeholders
of the party. Nobody in Nigeria can take the party seriously. If ordinary
expulsion of those who have committed to kill the party cannot be carried out
by the NWC, those who want the right to be done in the NWC are in majority.
Therefore, convene an NWC meeting with or without Damagum and carry out this
action. Yes, there will be turbulence at the initial stage but we will survive
it. I am asking members of the NWC, those who are progressives, who are a
majority, this is the time to act.”
Speaking further, he said: “Those days that we were so
scared would come are now here with us. We cried, we fought, we begged the PDP
leaders to stand up and rescue the party. We told them that there are imposters
in the party in the persons of Umar Damagum and Samuel Anyanwu.
“However, PDP governors played with this. PDP stakeholders
played with this. We said if the right thing was not done, this party would
disintegrate before our own eyes. We said that if Alex Ekwueme, Solomon Lar,
Adamu Ciroma and all the founding fathers of this party were alive today and
were seeing the goings-on, they would cry over how the once biggest opposition
platform in Africa had been turned into a political dog that barked without
biting.
“We warned of the threats that these men (Anyanwu and
Damagum portend) and the consequences. Today, look at the state of our party.
Our governors are jumping ship. Our lawmakers are jumping ship. Our members are
jumping ship in different parts of the country. Come to think about it, we may
blame outsiders, or those who have decided to work with the APC. But what about
ourselves, our governors? What did the governors do, categorically, to resolve
this problem?
“When Ayu was removed, the right thing to have been done was
to convene a National Executive Meeting, NEC, meeting and find a replacement
from the North-Central. However, when the time for NEC came, our governors
would say, it was Salah and Muslim people were travelling, then shifted it.
When they came back, they would say it is Easter and on it went until this
moment. Is that not shameful behaviour? For two years, the leaders of this
party could not find a solution to these problems because they decided to
sabotage the same platform that gave them whatever they have today.
For two good years, Damagum has stayed with Ayanwu to carry
out a very simple task, which is to decimate the party. I heard Damagum ( reacting to decamping of
Delta Governor), saying that our faith is in God’s hands. That is rubbish and
an arrant nonsense. Damagum, why are you bringing God into this? How can our
faith be in God’s hands? Where was God when you refused to allow a NEC meeting
for the North-Central to appoint an acting replacement? Where was God when you
kept on shifting it? Where was God when you filed a matter in court against our
own PDP in support of those lawmakers who defected from PDP to the All
Progressives Congress, APC, in Rivers State, which led us to the crisis of
emergency today in Rivers?
