.Faction: No going back on Jan 22 NWC inauguration
No 10, Tito Broz Street, Asokoro, Abuja, the supposed National Secretariat of the faction of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Fresh PDP, is under lock and key when New Telegraph visited yesterday.
The aggrieved PDP members under the auspices of Concerned PDP Candidates and Stakeholders’ Forum, last December, opened the secretariat in protest over the use of Unity List to elect the current National Working Committee (NWC) members.
The group also said it would inaugurate its own factional NWC on January 22.
The factional secretariat is a three-bedroom duplex. Two flags in PDP colours were hoisted when they addressed a press conference last December.
But when this reporter visited the No 10, Tito Broz Street yesterday, the flags were gone. There was no sign that it was a political party’s office.
The doors were securely locked. Two private security guards at a building nearby told this reporter that the upstairs is a private residence.
According to them, the flags are hoisted whenever the group wants to hold a function.
The arrowhead of the Fresh PDP, Dr. Godwin Duru, however, said there was no going back in the planned inauguration of factional NWC next Monday.
PDP National Reconciliation Committee, headed by Governor Seriake Dickson, had immediately embarked on reconciliation with chairmanship aspirants to calm frayed nerves. But Duru said nobody had reached them.
“They are meeting people they consider important. They feel there is nothing we can do,” he said.
Duru, who contested the National Organising Secretary position, said his ambition was not a do-or-die.
“When you run for an election, it is either you win or you lose. But when it is done in a way that is not free and fair, one has to speak out. That is what we are doing,” he said.
He has not, however, foreclosed amicable resolution of the issue, but said it depends on the manner of approach by the party leadership.
PDP National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan, had said the NWC would meet with all former aspirants this January, but no date has been fixed for the meeting.
Chairman of the PDP Board of Trustees (BoT), Senator Walid Jibrin, also warned members of the Fresh PDP to desist from creating further crisis in the party.
“This our party has undergone many trials, trials of leaving the party by some former governors and some party leaders. Followed by the misfortune we have suffered under Ali Modu Sheriff and now one group is coming up again, the so-called Fresh PDP.
“I will pray that this PDP (group) will not see the light at all. We are doing all we can to ensure that they do not go anywhere. The suffering we suffered in the party will not be repeated,” Jibrin prayed.
.newtelegraph
