Barely one week after a court
declared the parallel National
Working Committee (NWC) of the
Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)
illegal, the leadership of the group has
boasted that five more governors
have indicated interest to join the
seven already with the group.This is
coming at a time when the Baraje
group has vowed to remove Alhaji
Bamanga Tukur from office as
national chairman of the party.
Justice Elvis Chukwu of a Federal
High Court in Abuja had Friday last
week proclaimed the Bamanga
Tukur-led PDP National Working
Committee, (NWC) as the authentic
national leadership of the party.
Reacting to this, the group, in a
statement signed by Kawu Baraje,
disclosed that it would abide by the
court’s judgment but would hold a
meeting this week to decide another
line of action.
He stated: “As a group that has a lot
of respect for the judiciary, we have
accepted the ruling in good faith and
wish to abide by it. Even so, we have
directed our legal team to appeal the
judgment, as a matter of urgency, as
we remain convinced that we have a
good case and are thus determined to
ensure that Tukur and his cohorts are
not allowed to hold sway as the
leaders of our great party.”
Baraje, who just returned from the
Holy Pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia,
disclosed that he has convened an
emergency meeting of the G7,
stakeholders and the National
Working Committee (NWC) of the
New PDP to exhaustively discuss the
new developments and chart the way
forward, as there is no going back on
the struggle to rescue PDP from the
“hands of usurpers.”
He said: “Apart from deciding on the
Federal High Court ruling and the
challenges facing us a group, the G7/
stakeholders/NWC meeting slated for
this week is expected to deliberate on
how five more governors of PDP that
have indicated interest to join the
Baraje leadership will be received in
the fold.”
The factional national chairman
denied media reports of a crack in its
camp and declared that his group
was determined to remove the Tukur-
led NWC it described as undemocratic
elements.
He said: “Let us reiterate that
contrary to insinuations in some
quarters, reflected in a section of the
media, of division and disunity
among our governors and National
Assembly members because of our
current travails, the fact remains that
instead of division, our current
travails have strengthen us the more
and act as a unifying factor that have
shown us that it is a matter of time
that the undemocratic elements that
have seized our party will be
dislodged.
“Meanwhile, we feel nothing but pity
for Alhaji Tukur and his NWC, who are
already gloating over their ‘victory’
over us and even had the temerity to
describe us and our governors as
criminals. By being so uncouth in
addressing governors duly elected by
Nigerians, Tukur and his disciples
have once more vindicated our
struggle to flush out these unholy
undemocratic elements from our
party.
“We are confident that this is one
mission, which we shall successfully
accomplish, by the grace of God, not
minding the use of state security
agencies to harass and intimidate our
people.”
source: http://sunnewsonline.com/new/cover/pdp-crisis-five-govs-ready-join-us-baraje/