Chuks Okocha in Abuja
A fierce internal battle now rages within the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) after Wednesday’s Board of Trustees (BOT) resolution seeking to unseat National Secretary, Senator Sam Anyanwu.
A statement issued by the party’s South-east Zonal Legal Adviser, Ukpai Ukairo, condemned the BOT’s decision describing it as “porous, illegal and lacking foundation in law and morality.”
Also, members of the PDP Coalition of Youth for Good Governance have emphatically warned the BoT not to take a position that would undermine possibilities of a peaceful resolution of the conflict by respecting the Court of Appeal in Enugu order which granted Anyanwu a stay of execution on the Court of Appeal judgment.
The group’s leader, Emmanuel Mba emphasised on Friday that the tenure of most of the BoT members had expired, in view of Section 32(4) of the party’s Constitution which states that “All members of the Board of Trustees shall serve a term of five years and no more.”
Ukairo argued that the mere act of taking the PDP BoT’s meeting to a hotel instead of the party’s national secretariat was enough to subject the BoT Chairman, Senator Adolphus Wabara to serious disciplinary sanctions.
According to Ukairo, the purported resolution is ‘an accursed document’.
Ukairo said the BOT showed complete disrespect to the office of the National Legal Adviser, and to the offices of all Legal Advisers elected by the PDP at different levels by disregarding or ignoring their advice and functions as stated in Article 42(1)(a) of PDP Constitution, which stipulates that “unless there is a programme to foist lawlessness on and disrespect of the Constitution of PDP, the BOT communique must be thrown overboard.”
Ukairo said: “The BOT meeting held at a hotel was not an official meeting of the BOT of PDP, it was, rather, the gathering of like-minded friends who are members of the BOT; I have initiated an immediate legal process under the Freedom of Information Act to compel the hotel to disclose who paid for that venue to demonstrate beyond doubt that what happened at the hotel was not a meeting of the BOT of PDP.
“Let me stress that the letter/report of the learned Senior Advocate of Nigeria (Alhaji Kabiru Tanimu Turaki) was addressed thus: Senator Adolphus Wabara, Chairman Board of Trustees of BOT, Peoples Democratic Party, National Headquarters, Wadata, Plaza; regrettably, we were not told why the Chairman took the official meeting of the BOT to a hotel.
“I dare suggest that this act of the Chairman of the BOT offends several sub-sections of Section 58 of the PDP Constitution and on that pedestal, appropriate disciplinary procedure ought to be initiated against him at the appropriate level; in the light of the foregoing, I am compelled by force of law to advice that the communique is an accursed document that has no place in the arsenal of any self-respecting institution,” he stated.
