No fewer than sixty members of the House of Representatives elected on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, have called for the resignation of the party’s acting national chairman, Umar Damagum, over alleged anti-party activities.
Speaking on behalf of the lawmakers during a press conference in Abuja on Monday, the member representing Ideato North/Ideato South Federal Constituency, Ikenga Ugochinyere, accused Mr Damagun of working for the All Progressives Congress, APC, to bring down the opposition party.
He said the call became necessary so that the party could midwife the process of handing it over to someone from the North Central region in line with the provisions of the PDP.
“We demand the immediate resignation of Damagun as Acting National Chairman of PDP for anti-party activities and allow the North Central to produce the Acting Chairman as clearly stated in the PDP Constitution or watch us reconsider our membership of the party in the months ahead if the right thing is not done.
“We also call for the removal of Damagun by the party’s National Executive Committee with further sanctions against him for his anti-party activities.
“It is our call on Damagum to immediately resign so that the party can midwife a process and hand over to someone from North Central in line with the provisions of our great party.
“It is also our call to the leaders of our party from the North Central, Governor Caleb Mutfwang of Plateau, Senators David Mark, Bukola Saraki, Abba Moro, Gabriel Suswam, and Babangida Aliyu, to rise up now and save the soul of the part,” he said.
“Following the removal of Iyorchia Ayu as national chairman of our party and assumption of office by Damagun, who was elected as Deputy National Chairman to act in his stead, the party has only known misfortune and has abdicated its responsibility as the leading opposition party in the country.
“That role which Nigerians would have loved the PDP to play as an institution it truly is has been abdicated for a plate of porridge.
“There had been an agreement of a broad spectrum of the party leadership when it became clear that Damagum was not interested in conducting elections but in appointing caretaker committees in at least 19 states where the tenures of the state and local government leaders were expiring to extend the tenures of these officials by three months.
“This decision, which was made to cover every state, was the wisdom that restrained Damagum from announcing a wholesale list of a majority of caretaker committees populated by APC agents masquerading as PDP members.
“However, despite that decision to retain everybody, Mr Damagun went ahead and received a list of APC agents and announced them as members and leaders of the PDP local government caretaker committees, wholesomely in Rivers State and partially in at least 10 other states. This is a direct attempt to kill the PDP and ensure it goes into extinction.”
While threatening to cut ties with the party, Mr Ugochinyere said: “You have a chance to resign immediately, leave, or be embarrassed out of the party. At least 60 of us in the PDP in the National Assembly will severe all relationships with the Damagun leadership until he leaves office.
“At the scheduled National Executive Committee meeting, if Damagun, by any manoeuvring however conjectured, remains in office with the help of his APC friends at the end of the day; the party is now heading to the final slaughter shed.”