*We are now born again —Mantu

By Emman Ovuakporie, Ben Agande & Johnbosco Agbakwuru

Abuja — The Board of Trustees (BoT), of Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, formally took over the party’s national secretariat yesterday, promising that it would do everything to ensure that normalcy returned to the party as soon as possible.

This came on a day two members of the House of Representatives defected from the party to All Progressives Congress , APC.

The BoT members were led by the chairman, Senator Walid Jibrin, secretary, Ambassador Ojo Maduekwe, Dan Sulaiman, former Deputy President of the Senate, Ibrahim Mantu and former Deputy Senate Whip, Stella Omu.

In a brief remark before the BOT members went into a closed door meeting with staff of the party, Chairman of the board, Senator Walid Jibrin, said as the only organ of the party not encumbered by any court injunction, the board was obliged to take over the party in order not to create room for a vacuum.

File: National Secretariat of the PDP sealed up at the Wadata Plaza, Wide Zone 5, Abuja.

According to him, though the expanded meeting of the BoT of the party last week enjoined the caretaker committee, headed by Senator Ahmed Makarfi, last week, the committee is incapacitated by court injunctions filed against it.

IGP and sealing of party secretariat

He said the board requested the Inspector General of Police to seal the party secretariat last week in order to avoid a break down of law and order from the contending forces.

“We want to thank the staff for your devotion and dedication to work. This place was sealed for sometimes by the Nigerian police. The reason was to keep our building safe. I want to congratulate the police for a job well done. What we needed was to safeguard our property and to safeguard your lives. We the BoT are interested to be in charge of the assets and liabilities of the PDP. We have been asked, under the constitution, to be in charge and it is in that respect that the IGP, having considered the importance for the staff, directed that this place be opened and entrusted in the hands of the BoT because it remains the only legal body now,” he said.

Jibrin said the leadership crisis would not affect the fielding of candidates for the forthcoming elections, especially Edo State governorship election slated for October, 2016.

Earlier in his remarks, the Secretary of the BoT, Amb. Ojo Madueke, reiterated that since there was no court order challenging the eligibility of the BoT to run the party, the body had to step in to avoid creating a vacuum.

He said the national caretaker committee of the party, led by Senator Ahmed Makarfi, was operating outside the secretariat, expressing hope that the crisis in the party would soon be resolved.

Mantu speaks

The former deputy president of the senate, Senator Ibrahim Mantu, maintained that the PDP would have run Nigeria for 60 years as speculated by some of its leaders, if it had remained resolute with the founding philosophy, vision and mission of its founding fathers.

“Those of us who have been in the system right from 1999; whether I like it or not, were part of the problem. That is why I say we need to apologise to Nigerian people. We need to apologise to God in Heaven who gave us power and we misused that power.

‘’But we are now saying as born again people we must do things differently, we should be seen to be doing things in accordance to the aspiration of the people.

“We apologise to God and Nigerians who gave us power but we got intoxicated with it and it collapsed. It is impunity that ruined our party. We didn’t allow the voice of the people to work in our system. We didn’t say no to recklessness, imposition and impunity.’’ Mantu said.

Defection
Meanwhile, two members of the House of Representatives yesterday decamped from the opposition Peoples Democratic Party ,PDP, to All Progressives Congress, APC.

The two members are Tony Nwoye from Anambra State and Udende Emmanuel from Benue State.

This is the first time in the 8th House that members are defecting, barely eight days to its first anniversary, and with this development, the APC now has 215 members and PDP, 138.

The defection of the two lawmakers did not go down well with the Leader of the opposition, Leo Ogor, Isoko Federal Constituency, who expressed disappointment in the two members.

He insisted there was no basis for their defection as there were no factions in the PDP, adding also that no court had ruled otherwise.

The defectors in separate letters read by the presiding officer and Speaker, Yakubu Dogara, on the floor of the House, cited division in the PDP as the reason they were leaving the party.

The members said since the PDP had allegedly broken into three factions, headed by Ali Modu Sheriff, Ahmed Makarfi and Jerry Gana respectively, they didn’t wish to belong to any faction.

Consequently, the Minority Leader, Leo Ogor, in a point of order, rose to protest the position of the members alleging that the PDP was divided.

According to him, no recognised institution, such as the courts have ruled that the party has split into factions.
Commenting on this, the speaker said there was no need to debate the matter as the issues of the PDP would be handled at its national level.

Ogor, who spoke to Vanguard after yesterday’s plenary, insisted there was no basis for their defection as there were no factions
in the PDP and that no court had ruled otherwise.

“The Supreme Court ruling says for there to be a faction, some members of the Executive of the party have to be a part of the faction. The convention took a decision of setting up an adhoc committee to organise elections in three months,” he said.
Ogor said he would approach the party first thing this morning with the votes and proceedings of the House.

“We would head to Court to make sure they vacate those seats, then we go for election to replace those interlopers. They think they can go to APC so easily, but they are wrong. So as long as we have a Supreme Court ruling in this matter, they are history,” he said.

Ogor admitted that as Minority Leader, he was taken completely unawares by the defections.

He said: “I am so shocked and highly disappointed. I would have thought they would have discussed this kind of issue with me.

They know there are no factions but they are trying to create factions. They did not do proper consultations on this. These are young men who do not know their right from their left in politics.’’