Why President Jonathan's aides want to hijack PDP leadership: Olisa Metuh

The National Publicity Secretary of Peoples Democratic Party , Mr Olisa Metuh, on Monday dismissed insinuations of crisis in the party.

Metuh however  accused some ambitious associates and aides of President Jonathan who want to hijack the party's  leadership of being behind the party recent troubles.

The party’s spokesman spoke at  a press conference in Abuja.

“We wish to state clearly that there is no crisis in the national leadership of the PDP. The National Working Committee under the Chairmanship of Ahmadu Adamu Mu'azu is duly elected and is fully in control of the administration of the party until the expiration of its tenure in March 2016 in line with the provisions of the constitution of our great party,” he said.

“We had also alerted the Nigerian public through you that some members of our party including ambitious aides and associates of President Goodluck Jonathan are using their perceived closeness to him to further their heinous agenda of injecting crisis in the party with a view to highjacking the structure for their selfish interests.”

According to hi, the primary objective of those  fuelling the crisis was to prepare the grounds for their eventual defection.

Metuh said, “We hereby wish to alert the general public and all our members that the main agenda of these elements is not only to hijack the national leadership but also to create an impression of division and crisis and pave the way to lure some of our elected members to decamp to other parties apparently in view of the recent ruling of the Supreme Court which allows defection in the event of leadership crisis at their party's national level.

“In the attempt to discredit the NWC, these elements pushed out series of misleading information to the unsuspecting public alleging that the party leadership mismanaged the Presidential campaign funds, leading to the poor performance in the polls and as such NWC should be made to resign.

“When this wicked and baseless allegation was debunked by the NWC who publicly clarified that it was not involved in the handling of the campaign and its funding, and that such were exclusively managed by the Presidential Campaign Organisation appointed by the President, these divisive elements in their desperation came up with another allegation claiming that the leadership embezzled funds belonging to the party.

According to Metuh,“Even after the NWC also debunked this despicable allegation, showing that the party's funds were judiciously appropriated for our state election campaigns, this group resorted to labeling the NWC with attempts to instigate President Jonathan, PDP governors and other well-meaning members of our party against the national leadership.

“This is in addition to recent sponsored publications accusing the NWC of corruption with claims that members shared monies generated from the sale of forms from aspirants for the general elections.

“For the avoidance of doubt, we wish to state categorically that this national leadership has remained very transparent in all its dealing since coming into office. No NWC member has been involved in anyway in any sleaze or embezzlement of party funds. Also, no member of the NWC has ever been accused of embezzlement of funds in any ministry, department or agencies of government at any level whatsoever.

“We state clearly that we have not been given any money, rather this NWC generated billions of naira from the sale of forms from where we funded our candidates for governorship and state assembly elections in all the states of the federation in addition to funds released to key leaders including NWC and BoT members to prosecute the campaigns in their various areas. The NWC is willing and ready to make this account public in line with the freedom of information law.

“However, we are happy to announce that the leader of our party, President Jonathan, the PDP governors and other key stakeholders of our party including governors and legislators-elect are deeply concerned about this development and have intervened to ensure the desired stability in our party.

He thanked  “the President for his role in calling all stakeholders to order in the general interest of the party. In the same vein, we thank our governors and elders of the party for their mediation as well as in joining forces with the NWC in the efforts to reengineer and rebuild our great party and reposition to it to regain power in 2019.

“As you are aware, part of our reengineering process is the setting up of the PDP Post Election Assessment Committee, which is to be inaugurated tomorrow to evaluate and assess our performance in the general elections and make recommendations for the way forward.

For Metuh, the way forward is for  all PDP  members across the country to close ranks and work together with their leaders at all levels and make themselves partners in progress in the all important on-going rebuilding process aimed at restoring the supremacy of the party and its glory as the preeminent party in Nigeria.

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