Some People’s Democratic Party (PDP) lawmakers in the National Assembly have raised the alarm over an alleged plot to impose Umar Damagum as the party’s National Chairman.
They said that the plan involves shifting the election of a new national chairman to August at Thursday’s National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting.
According to them, the plan was also to elect All Progressives Congress (APC) members as executives of PDP in State chapters.
The spokesperson of the group, Hon. Ikenga Imo Ugochinyere, speaking to journalists early Thursday morning, noted that with the withdrawal of pending court cases by the suspended national chairman, Iyorchia Ayu, all impediments to the emergence of new PDP national chairman at Thursday’s NEC meeting had been removed.
According to him, the former PDP national chairman Ayu’s case was used as an excuse for Damagun to attempt to elongate his illegal stay in office, but to their shock Ayu made a huge sacrifice by withdrawing his case against the party from the Appeal Court, thereby paving the way for the emergence of another North Central person as PDP national chairman.
He, however, said that they received intelligence reports of the pre and post-caucus meeting outcomes with an alleged plan to give Damagum a soft landing up to August 2024 and by so doing, elect APC members as PDP State Executives in over 19 states of the Federation.
According to Ugochinyere, this means that by the time a North-Central person emerges as the new national chairman, all state congresses would have been held for fresh four-year tenure in over 19 states with APC officials planted into the heart of the party, thereby burying the party and suffocating it and killing any survival attempt.
The lawmakers said, “We say no to the last-minute plan to shift today’s expected Umar Damagum step down as acting chairman of PDP to August before North-Central can take the chairmanship of the party, which is a last-minute plan by the APC loyalists backing him to give them room to use the few months extension to use Damagum to inflict irreversible damage to PDP by filling the over 19 states with expiring state Executives with pro-APC members as officials.
“The extension is a plan to elect APC members as executives of state chapters, thereby planting those who will massively decamp to APC to create the impression of crisis in the party. The NEC must arise and state it clearly and give our party the leadership it deserves.
“Former Chairman Ayu’s case was used as an excuse for Damagum to attempt to elongate his illegal stay, but to our shock, Ayu made a huge sacrifice by withdrawing his case, thereby paving the way for the emergence of North-Central person today but the APC agents controlling Damagum after their secret meeting came up with a new agenda which is being sold to party members to allow Damagun handover by August.
“To many, this will be seen as a victory as the Executive will be expiring before the August handover.
“We call and restate our position that Damagum must step down and revert to his deputy chairmanship position, and a North-Central person should be elected as Chairman.”
