By: Valentine Adese (JP),
The Plateau State Chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), may soon be experiencing another round of crises, if the Caretaker Committee led by Senator Tunde Ogbeha, does not watch its back and reassess or revalidate it steps and approaches, towards the issues surrounding the chapter, which it humbly came to address.
REALITY investigations indicates that, more grievances are now been accumulated, as the CTC tries to solve the issues it met on ground.
This paper gathered that, many members are already gearing up to approach the Court to seek redress, if the internal mechanisms of the party does not address and approach the vex issues before the slated Congresses of 11th, 16 and 25th September, 2021.
It is a fact that, the appointment of the 11 member Senator Ogbeha’s Caretaker Committee brought some relief, as the Committee went into business by first sorting out the issue of primary elections for the Chairmanship and Councillorship elections billed for October.
You would recall that, the composition of the Committee, which was factionally base, has 4 persons each from the two camps of Senators Jonah David Jang and Jeremiah Useni, with the Chairman, Secretary and Legal Adviser coming from outside the state.
The CTC, obviously in a bid to make its work easy, set up a 5 man Reconciliation Committee headed by a former Speaker of the Plateau State House of Assembly, Rt. Hon. Michael Dapialong, to interact with aggrieved party men, who were asked to withdraw their cases in Court to provide a conducive atmosphere for reconciliation.
But unknown to the Chairman of the Committee, while the subcommittee took weeks of sessions with the litigants, the first stroke of manipulation currently been alleged and that may have gone viral is from the Subcommittee members themselves, who many have alleged have taken advantage of their positions, to begin to instigating fresh petitions from their respective areas of interest.
More allegedly, to satisfy those who may have, approached them, with one concern or the other, allegedly also, “under heavy financial influence or inducement”.
REALITY gathered in the course of this investigations that, Petitions, which were neither submitted to the Ward or Local Government Area (LGA) Appeal Committees nor were they part of cases in Court, suddenly found their ways to the Subcommittee and ongoing cases yet to be determined by the Courts, were given accelerated hearings by the CTC sub-committee.
From there, other interests began to develop and crop into the Subcommittee with the aim of influencing the outcome of the report to suit some interests allegedly ahead of the 2023 elections.
From records, and facts submitted by the mother body of the PDP to INEC, areas of conflicts at the earlier Congresses of the chapter were:
JOS-SOUTH: 6 WARDS AND LGA CONGRESSES. JOS-EAST: LGA CONGRESS. JOS-NORTH: LGA CONGRESS. QUA’ANPAN: 1 WARD. GINDIRI: WARD1 CONGRESS, AND KANAM: 14 WARDS AND LGA CONGRESSES
But findings has it that, while the CTC Chairman trusted other members of the Committee with various responsibilities especially that, each was representing his faction, little did he know that, financial inducements and political permutations for 2023 may have allegedly united his indigenous members for the worst.
It is obvious and unarguable that, the CTC Chairman initiated a state tour of the 17 local governments, with his personal fund, which rekindled hope and raised the sleeping image of the party in the state and gave every stakeholder and member a strong sense of pride.
The facts before REALITY, however, indicates that, the areas under dispute have expanded and the Subcommittee has started acting and taking decisions that may be qualified as, unlawful, illegal, and ultra vires their briefs.
For instance, REALITY gathered that, the members of the party are raising questions as the report of the Sub-committee is allegedly said to have been submitted last week recommending a repeat of congresses in all the 14 Wards in Kanam, 8 Wards in Kanke (Garam, Ampang Central. Amper Seri, Nemel, Langshi, Amper, Kabwir Gyangyang and Kabwir Pads), 3 Wards in Mangu (Gindiri ii, Janaret and Gindiri i), 2 Wards in Bokkos (Daffo & Richa), 2 Wards in Riyom (Bum & Attakar) and one Ward in Jos North (Jos Jarawa).
Investigations by this medium revealed that a lot of misnomer in the process of reconciliation may have occurred as the CTC looks on.
Some aggrieved members of the chapter, have expressed disappointment in the CTC, wondering why it has not channeled its effort toward ensuring that the directive given by the NWC to some members of the party (to withdraw all pending Court cases) is adhered to, adding that rather, the Committee choose to allegedly, engaged in acts of illegality capable of further deepening crisis in the party.
A simply check in Plateau State High Court, would confirmed that indeed, cases instituted by the said members have not been withdrawn. A check at the course list at the Pankshin High Court, would showed that, continuation of hearing in one of the cases is coming on October 04, 2021.
The aggrieved members said that, they were tempted to believed that the rumours making the rounds that the CTC has been bought was true.
The members, who have shown concerns to the alleged ugly developments, are of the belief that, while Ogbeha was fervently pursuing unity of the party in Plateau state, some of his indigenous members, were looking for money and therefore saw an open opportunity to make it or negotiate for it with all eyes looking at 2023 political ambitions.
One area of concern pointed out by the aggrieved members in the chapter, while speaking to REALITY, they stated that, “It is pertinent to draw your attention to the fact that we were all validly elected during the Ward Congress election held on 7th March, 2020, and have been at the helms of affairs of the Party in our respective Wards in the past one and half year. It is also a fact that since the said election there has not been any petition file by anybody with the competent body within the parameters of the law as provided under section 15:0(ii) of the Peoples Democratic Party Guidelines for the Conduct of Ward, LGA, State, Zonal Congress and National Convention for the purpose of Electing Party Executive Committees at all levels 2020.
“Now, to the crux of the matter and it is worthy to note that the illegal path deliberately embarked upon by the subcommittee, to arrived at a conceived and prearranged recommendations is to reciprocate the financial inducement by a governorship aspirant who is a new entrant into PDP( names withheld) whose campaign director general is a strategic member of both the CTC and the subcommittee.
“This governorship aspirant, a known member of the ruling APC in the state and a current member of the state economic team, almost became a minister but having lost to the present Minister of women affairs, Pauline Tallen, angrily joined the PDP to actualize his 2023 ambition.
“He used heavy loads of money to influence the subcommittee members who went against the party constitution to satisfy him because of his money. He is said to be paying the bills of the subcommittee and has them on monthly salary just to keep a hold on them.
“We gathered that all the CTC members, except the Chairman, were in Makurdi at the weekend for the governorship declaration of the CTC Secretary, Mr Patrick Ogbu alongside the said governorship aspirant from Plateau.
“Even before the report was finally brought out to the main committee, the said aspirant, through his cronies were heard boasting that the report was going to favour them”.
In a summary, the current crises about to rock the chapter is being triggered allegedly by a Sub-committee Report constituted by the Sen. Tunde Ogbeha led Caretaker Committee (CTC), which has allegedly recommended the repeat of congress elections in some Wards in 7 Local Government Areas of the state, as listed above.
What is knotty in this development is that, the affected Wards have in place validly elected EXCO members, who have been operating for over one and half years now.
What also has been highly surprising to stakeholders of the party is the refusal of the CTC to present the said recommendations of the Sub-committee for deliberations during the State Caucus meeting held on Friday 28th August 2021.
This paper gathered that, instead of presenting the report before the Caucus first, the CTC forwarded the recommendations, straight to the Acting Chairman of the party, Elder Yemi Akinwonmi for action.
This is now raising avoidable tension in the party, as REALITY further gathered that, aggrieved members have sworn to use whatever means legally possible to stop the State Congress elections scheduled for this month, if the leadership of the party fails to address the issue.
No comments:
Post a Comment