By Mudiaga Affe
The series of crises rocking the main opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) took a new twist recently with several members of the party’s Board of Trustees resigning and yet others in the National Working Committee threatening to follow the same path.

This is in addition to the recent loss of three sitting state governors to the All Progressives Congress (APC) in addition to Wednesday’s defection of a member of BoT, Joy Emordi, to the ruling party, with nearly all the defectors citing, among others, the leadership crisis in the PDP.

The governor of Cross Rivers, Ben Ayade, David Umahi of Ebonyi, and that of Zamfara State, Bello Matawalle, dumped the PDP, while several lawmakers in the Green and Red chambers of the National Assembly, especially from the states where the governors defected, have also joined the ruling party.

Among the top National Assembly lawmakers that defected from the PDP to the APC were Senator Sahabi Ya’u (Zamfara North), Senator Lawali Anka (Zamfara West), and Senator Peter Nwaoboshi (Delta North). The lawmakers in three separate letters to the President of the Senate, Ahmad Lawan, attributed their resignation from the opposition to an internal crisis, tyranny and leadership failure within the party.

Their reasons for defecting further exacerbated the tension as the crisis snowballed into an outright call by other aggrieved members on the National Chairman of the PDP, Uche Secondus to resign. They believe that the leadership of the party was running a one-man show.

But the straw that almost broke the camel’s back was the call by the Deputy National Publicity Secretary of the party, Diran Odeyemi, who threatened that more members of the National Working Committee would follow suit if Secondus failed to resign.

Indeed, their threat came through when seven members of the National Working Committee (NWC) resigned from their positions on August 2.

The officials resigned in separate letters to the National Secretary of the party, Umar Tsauri, on Monday. Those who resigned are the Deputy National Financial Secretary, Gerald Irona; Deputy National Organising Secretary, Hassan Yakubu; Deputy National Legal Adviser, Ahmed Liman, and Deputy National Publicity Secretary, Diran Odeyemi.

Others were the Deputy National Woman Leader, Hadizat Umoru; Deputy National Auditor, Divine Arong, and another official.

In addition to these crises is a high level of politicking that is already taking place in the background because the party is expected to elect new officers by December that will take it to the next general elections in 2023.
The political undercurrent within the party, pundits believe may have given rise to the seemingly increasing tension that has assumed different dimensions in the last few weeks.

There are those who believe Secondus has been bad news to the party and should be kicked out.

However, speaking on the development, which is alleged to be an offshoot of the schism between Secondus and his erstwhile staunch supporter, Nyesom Wike of Rivers State, the Senator representing Bayelsa West in the National Assembly, Seriake Dickson, said it will be wrong to have Secondus replaced at this critical time when the politics of 2023 election was already lurking around.

He said, “Our window of opportunity to take over power in 2023 is fast receding as a result of these self-inflicted challenges and the hope that Nigerians have in us as an alternative is fast dimming too unless we pull back from the brinks and do so quickly.”

But the National Youth Leader of the PDP, Udeh Okoye, thought otherwise as he described Secondus as “incompetent and care only about how to enrich himself”. He said the failure of Secondus to resign would trigger more resignations by members of the party at the higher level.

He said, “He (Secondus) had made sure that many departments of the party did not function as effectively as it ought to function. Mr. Chairman has nothing to offer to the party only to come here and deceive us.

“There is a sharp division in our NWC right now, not only me, many more NWC members are more aggrieved than myself.
“I am here to make it very clear to all Nigerians that if Secondus does not resign from the party, I am going to leave the party for him to eat the party and own the party. The governors, if they don’t wade into this matter right now, I assure Nigerians that within the next three, four days, my letter will be public.”

He said the leadership of the PDP will consider the option of impeachment if he fails to resign.

But in a response, the Special Adviser, Media to Secondus, Ike Abonyi, said it wondered why it took Okoye three and half years before realising that the National Chairman was incompetent or that he is enriching himself.

Also, the National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan said the party’s NWC “received the notice of the resignation from deputies who were elected members of the NEC.

“The meeting of the National Working Committee and the deputies immediately took place to dialogue on the issues that were raised. The party will look into the grievances raised by members of NEC as well as members of the National Working Committee.

“The internal conflict resolution mechanism of our party has also been immediately activated to put these issues behind us. We call on all the leaders, stakeholders, and members of our great party to remain calm as we collectively resolve these issues.”

Ologbondiyan had in a later interview said, “We have had a couple of meetings in the few days, both NEC and NWC, where the National Chairman, Uche Secondus, met with the aggrieved deputies who had expressed all manners of grievances.

He (Secondus) spoke with them and at the end of it all, and they said they would want to go and reconsider their positions and would give feedback- that is where we are.

“The leadership of the party is considering using the internal party conflict resolution mechanisms in the party to resolves these issues. We are talking to our leaders across the nation to resolve the matters.

It is wrong to say the chairman is travelling to collect largesse. Our operations are within the confines of what is available to us.”

Secondus himself had during the meeting with party stakeholders late Thursday, including members of the BoT, said, “Issues of this nature must be handled quickly and swiftly because any dislocation will cause an infraction and will result to several unknown issues that we may come out from or we may not come out from, but God forbid.”

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The BoT at the end of its meeting late Thursday, gave the Secondus-led National Working Committee a breather, as it reportedly did not take a position on an interim caretaker committee for the party; deferred the issue to today, Monday August 9. But the points of aggrieved NWC members and prominent leaders who are disenchanted with Secondus’ leadership was noted.

It was learnt that consultations are still ongoing to bring an end to the lingering crisis that has torn the party apart in the last couple of months.