New-PDP forms in Borno, sets to inaugurate factional exco

A faction of the opposition People's Democratic Party (PDP) in Borno state had yesterday backed the Alhaji Kawu Baraje-led New-PDP even as it is set to inaugurate its factional state executive council, Blueprint was told.

The Borno state chapter of the New-PDP had also passed a vote of no confidence on the current Baba Basharu-led PDP state exco, describing it as sharing the same high-handed approach known of Alhaji Bamanga Tukur, the PDP national chairman.

Speaking to newsmen shortly after a meeting of the breakaway PDP in Maiduguri, Comrade Sayinna Buba, a chairman of the Borno state PDP field workers, who had also been nominated the interim chairman of the New-PDP, said the new factional leadership would soon be inaugurated in the state.

According to Sayinna Buba, the formation of the New-PDP came at a time when members of the party in Borno state were yearning for an end to the self-serving leadership 'imposed' upon them via a 'kangaroo' congress officiated by the current minister of states for agriculture, Alhaji Bukar Tijjani.

'Following our meeting here in Maiduguri, yesterday, I was mandated by our esteemed members to announce our support to the new-PDP faction under Alhaji Kawu Baraje', Buba declared.

'This is necessitated by the fact that PDP members in Borno state have suffered untold hardship and this is the apt time we've been waiting for to reorganize our party base on the spirit shared long ago by our founding fathers who formed this party.

'It should be noted that I and many of us in this new movement were founding members of PDP since when it was being formed under professor Jerry Gana and we knew everything and how things went wrong. So we are hundred percent behind Kawu Baraje's faction.

"We also thank the courageous governors who started this struggle against the mutilation of our party especially by putting a wedge against the move by Bamanga Tukur and his cohorts who are bent in killing our party. With people like Tukur on the steering, PDP's noble plan to rule Nigeria for 60 years and take the country to greater heights can never be achieved. And we doubt if we are going to win the presidential election come 2015 as long as Bamanga Tukur is on seat as national chairman', said Comrade Buba, a former chairman of Jere local government council of Borno state.

Buba said, just like it was at the national level, their intention of forming the new-PDP in Borno state was not to factionalize the party, but rather to help in bringing back the party's lost glory.

Here in Borno state, we call on our esteemed members to be calm as we are going to inaugurate our new executives in the next seven days, with my humble self as chairman, while Mr Abga Barka Chiroma of Chibok local government serves as the state secretary.

The leadership of the Borno state PDP under Alhaji Baba Basharu is just a photocopy of Alhaji Bamanga Tukur at the national level; and base on article 16 of our party the current state exco of PDP in Borno state is illegal because no congress had been conducted. What happened was people were just hand-picked by the committee led by the Minister of states for agriculture.