Members of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the House of Representatives have joined forces with the clamour for the removal of Mr Uche Secondus as the pary’s national chairman.
In a communique signed by its Leader, Kingsley Chinda (PDP, Rivers) and Deputy Leader, Chukwuka Onyema (PDP, Enugu), members of the caucus said they arrived at the decision after a virtual meeting on Saturday.
They blamed the recent woes in the party on the “bedroom managerial attitude” of Mr Secondus.
The PDP lawmakers also accused Mr Secondus of not carrying party members along, adding that if he was allowed to continue in office in the next three months, the party would be in grave danger.
They asked the Board of Trustees (BOT) of the party and the PDP Governors Forum to commence the re-engineering of the party.
The tenure of Mr Secondus and other members of the National Working Committee (NWC) will expire in December having been elected for a four-year mandate in December 2018.
According to the communique, the PDP lawmakers asked the BOT and the Governors Forum to ensure immediate and firm resolution of current challenges to enable a re-engineering, re-focusing process that would restore party members and millions of other Nigerians’ hope and confidence in the PDP
They said this would be “an alternative to the current dysfunctional, irresponsive and rudderless government of APC with its attendant suffering, miseries, political deceit, economic woes, insecurity and all-round disappointment foisted on millions of Nigerian families across the federation”.
They also urged Secondus to “consider making the necessary personal sacrifice worthy of a leader in the party’s current and future interest by honourably resigning his position as party chairman immediately, to allow the party an early start”.
The lawmakers’ demand is coming less than one week after the PDP Board of Trustees intervened in the leadership crisis rocking the country’s main opposition party.
Members of the board who met last Thursday at the party’s headquarters in Abuja agreed to set up a committee to resolve the internal leadership crisis rocking the party.
Former Senate President, David Mark, who briefed journalists on the outcome of the board’s meeting, explained that the board resolved to set up the committee comprising governors, members of the BoT, National Assembly caucus of PDP, the National Working Committee, former governors and former ministers to look into the matter.
Mr Secondus has recently come under fire from members of the PDP who feel dissatisfied with his leadership style.
They blamed him for the gale of defections that hit the party in the recent months.
Three of its governors, namely David Umahi of Ebonyi State, Ben Ayade of Cross River and Bello Matawalle of Zamfara, defected to the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).
Similarly, some members of the PDP in the National Assembly also dumped the party for the APC.
A member of the BOT, Joy Emordi, a former senator, also resigned her membership of the party.
The crisis assumed a new dimension last week with the resignation of seven members of the NWC from their positions.##
