Abia PDP Exco Spoils For War With Nwodo

ABUJA, August 05, (THEWILL) - Barely twenty four hours after it was sacked by the National Working Committee of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), the Abia State chapter of the political party today declared an all out war with the National Chairman, Dr. Okwesilieze Nwodo and his committee adding that it breached all known moral conventions and also acted illegally and in gross violation of a court order.

They opined that the purported dissolution by the Nwodo led NWC, which will not pass any legal test, has thrown the party back to the era of impunity when rampant dissolution of elected state executive councils, just to pave way for decampee state governors in the PDP without recourse to the provisions of the party constitution was the order of the day.

Nwodo had on Wednesday announced the dissolution of the Chief Ndidi Okereke-led committee over what he described as "flagrant violation of our constitution, abuse of office and senile disobedience of lawful directives which has precipitated crises and fractionalisation of the party". The move was seen by observers as a veiled plot to pave way for the final entrant of the embattled Abia State Governor, Chief Theodore Orji to the party.

But Okereke and leaders of the party in Abia state in a press conference in Abuja debunked the claims arguing that there was no truth in the allegation made by the national leadership against the state executive committee.

Okereke said, "the purported dissolution is ill-informed, scandalous, totally unacceptable and without legal or moral basis", adding that all these were done in an attempt to woo the Abia State Governor, Chief Theodore Orji to the PDP from the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), where he defected to from Progressives Peoples Alliance (PPA).

According to him, when his executive learnt of the plot to hand over no less than 50 per cent of the party structure to Orji, they went to the high court in Owerri, where they obtained an injunction against any plans to tamper with the state party executive.

"As believers in due process and the rule of law, it is incumbent on all parties to respect the judiciary and avoid actions capable of prejudicing the outcome of the subsisting suit. Hence, the purported dissolution is ill-informed and an undue interference on the constitutional duty of the courts handling this matter," Okereke contended.

He said when it became clear that the party national leadership was bound to carry out the dissolution to satisfy the Governor, they served another process of the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory on the national chairman and some other national officers of the party, dealing with the party state leadership.

He questioned the meeting in which the decision was taken, just as he said, "Curiously, instead of respecting the court processes duly served on them, they hurriedly and purportedly dissolved the Abia executive with a document back-dated to 2nd of August, 2010 in order to circumvent the court order.

"It is a known fact that the NWC meeting of the PDP held on Wednesday, the 4th of August, 2010 at the National headquarters. Where then did the so-called meeting of 2nd of August, 2010 take place?" he added.

Okereke expressed shock that the new national leadership of the party, which swore to keep to the tenets of rule of law and due process, decided to unilaterally dissolve their executive without ever issuing them a query nor engaged them in any dialogue over the matter.

He warned that if the action is not reversed, then the national leadership of the party would be inviting anarchy into the PDP fold in the state, which he pledged they had worked hard to keep together.

He said, "It is on record that our national chairman, Dr. Okweilieze Nwodo has painstakingly outlined very laudable objectives which he hopes will form the hallmark of his tenure. Amongst these are the promises of respect for due process, rule of law and the entrenchment of internal democracy.

"We therefore urge Dr. Nwodo to follow this part of honour and good conscience by rescinding the purported dissolution of the executive committee of Abia PDP in the interest of our great party and its teeming supporters in Abia State who are greatly dismayed by this curious decision."