By Seyi Odewale
Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nyesom Wike, has responded to a comment by former president Goodluck Jonathan on the alleged anomaly of removal of a party’s National Chairman by a ward chairman.
ThisNigeria reports that Jonathan, while speaking in Abuja on Thursday during the celebration of Prof. Mike Ozekhome’s (SAN) 67th birthday criticised a Supreme Court judgment that allows a ward chairman to suspend the national chairman of a political party, calling it a “troubling absurdity that exists only in Nigeria.”
“We can’t have a situation where a ward chairman can expel a national chairman. It defies logic and undermines our system. Such rulings create instability, affecting everyone, including those who might currently feel victorious,” he said.
Reacting to the comment, the FCT Minister, while speaking during a luncheon in honour of the 10th Rivers State Assembly yesterday, stated that a suspended member of a party could not continue to hold the position they were appointed into.
Wike said, “I overheard some leaders at Mike Ozekhome’s book launch. It is so unfortunate. I don’t want to reply to things. Some leaders say a ward chair can remove a national chairman.
“No ward chairman removed a national chairman. What the ward did was to suspend the national chairman from the party. When they suspend you from the party, can you still hold that position as national chairman?”
Also speaking on the PDP leadership crisis, the Minister revealed that the acting Chairman of the Party, Umar Damagum, never threw his weight behind him (Wike).
He said, “In PDP, they said that the chairman should go. I am not his friend. He never supported me. We agreed that Damagum should complete Ayu’s tenure. But let me tell you why you should be careful when trusting people.
“At the meeting, we agreed that we should go and seek an interpretation of the PDP Constitution. The 2015 Constitution was not the same as 2017. There was a problem with the 2015 constitution.
“To cure the error, in 2017, we had an amendment of the Constitution, which said that there should be two deputy chairmen, and if the chairman from that zone has a problem, the deputy chairman should be able to complete his tenure.
“We never zoned to North West, North East; we zoned North and South. Chairman North, Secretary goes to South. When it is zoned to the north anybody who is a chairman should come from the north.
“They made it look zoned to North Central, North East, and Northwest. But we never did that. This problem arose, and we said it was better to go to the court to seek an interpretation of the party Constitution.
“Where the chairman has a problem the deputy chairman from that zone should complete his tenure. If you want the chairman, it should be from the National Convention.”
