The National Executive Council (NEC) of main opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has directed its state chairmen to submit comprehensive reports on their leadership.
Before a closed-door meeting at the party’s national headquarters in Abuja, the acting National Chairman, Ambassador Ilyas Damagun, told the state chairmen, led by a former minister and Chairman of Forum of PDP Chairmen, Mr. Felix Hassan Hyet, that the interactive meeting was called to find solutions to the party’s challenges.
PDP National Organising Secretary, Captain Umar Bature (retd.), told the meeting about the need to review the party’s leadership positions at the ward, local government, and state levels and also take action against those found to have engaged in anti-party activities.
“Lots of agitations are coming from party members to suspend this (person), suspend that (person). But you are the ones that are in charge of those states; you are to tell us who did anti-party activities and who did not do such so. Based on that, the PDP NWC will take a decision.
“Write to us and tell us what transpired, no matter what happened,” Bature said.
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The national organising secretary stressed the need for the party headquarters to have comprehensive reports on all those who worked against the party’s interest during last year’s general election and the subsequent polls.
According to him, yesterday’s meeting was also called to review the tenure of those in party executive councils at the ward, local government, and state levels.
Bature added: “We are here to review the tenure of about 26 states, in terms of wards, local governments, and states. If you recall, most of the current executives in the states were elected four years ago, where congress were conducted on a staggered basis due to COVID-19 issues.
“Now, we have about four to five states that their tenure has expired from the ward up to the state levels; that is Edo, Bayelsa, Gombe, and Rivers states. There are others which are staggered. So, in order not to create a vacuum or go into a crisis, we have called this meeting.
“Also, we have issues and crises in various states and we decided to call you for this meeting to interact with you on the way forward, pending when the NEC will sit and decide on all these.
“Also, if there are vacancies due to deaths and resignations, please, don’t replace any name, don’t fix another person for issues that will come up later.”
“If this meeting decides that everybody will go as a caretaker, leave the exco the way they are. Submit the list to us as it is. If there are 15 people and five have joined another party, submit the remaining 10; don’t replace them.
“After the elections, we expected the state chapters to give us their reports. That is the post-2023 election results, but a lot of the states have not submitted their reports, and we need those reports to be compiled for the next NEC meeting.
“I also want the acting national chairman to call on the chairman of Cross River State to tell us what is happening in the state, because there are so many things happening. We are hearing in the media. We really need to know what is happening.”