The new Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Ebonyi, Mr Peter Nwele, has promised that the newly constituted State Executive Working Committee will rebuild the party and restore its lost glory.Nwele made the promise in a speech after his inauguration as the state Chairman of the party on Saturday in Abakaliki.

Report says that he emerged at the state congress held at the party Secretariat on the Abakaliki-Enugu highway. He said that the first major task before him was to bring back all the estranged members, reconcile them back and ensure that the party was restored back to its lost glory. He said that the new leadership would strive to reposition the party and ensure that it played “a vital role as a leading and most populous opposition party in the state”.Nwele, who emerged in a peaceful, transparent and credible election, commended members for the trust reposed in him.He promised to run an open-door administration.“We owe a paramount duty to our great party.“We are going to bring back the lost glory of our party.“And in doing this, we are going to embark on a mission to bring back all the aggrieved members who left the party due to one offence or the other.“We all know that Ebonyi is a PDP dominant state and the story has not changed.“We will embark on reconciliation because the party is large enough to contain everyone,” Nwele said.Earlier, Chief Ali Odefa, the National Vice Chairman of PDP, South-East, told newsmen in an interview that the mass turnout of delegates at the election showed the enthusiasm and interest that people still have in the party not only in Ebonyi but across the country.Odefa said that PDP was being reinvented not only to play a major opposition role but to wrest power from the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) at the state and national levels in the next general election.“What we are doing is that we are putting our house in order, getting our act together to wrest power from the ruling APC.“My advice to the new leadership in the state is to go about building the party, helping to reconcile every interest because in partisan politics there is bound to be diverse interests.“The ability to bring those interests together is what makes party stronger,” the PDP chieftain said.He further said that the party would welcome all its old members who defected to other parties wishing to contest on the party’s platform in 2027 General Elections.“An implosion awaits the other parties.“This is PDP, we will open our arms and whoever wants to come in, we will welcome him back into the fold,” he said.Meanwhile, the Chairman, State Congress Committee, Mr Ugonna Ogbonna, said that the election, including the accreditation of delegates, was conducted in line with the laid down guidelines.Ogbonna described the election as hitchfree, credible and transparent.“Officials of the Independent National Electoral Commission and various security outfits, including the Police, Civil Defence and Department of State Security, were also on ground to monitor the exercise and provide security,” Ogbonna said. (NAN)

A Chieftain of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in Lagos State, Dr Adetokunbo Pearse, says the state chapter of the party will find its bearing after the yet-to-be-fixed state congresses.

Pearse, a former member, Atiku Abubakar 2023 Presidential Campaign Council, disclosed this in an interview on Saturday in Lagos.

The PDP has been faced with some internal crisis among the party leaders and state executives, which led to the poor outing in the 2023 general elections.

Pearse revealed that the state leaders had inaugurated three different committees to help the party find its way ahead of the 2027 general elections.

According to him, the Lagos State PDP is now being run by the three committees to bring members together.

“The PDP congresses will begin soon and this will make the party find its way. The status quo is intact in the PDP.

“The PDP is now running through three committees that were formed about three or four months ago,” he said.

Pearse listed the committees to include the Disciplinary Committee under the leadership of Mr Tai Benedict, the state Deputy Chairman of the party and the Reconciliation Committee under the chairmanship of Alhaji Muritala Ashorobi, a former PDP state chairman.

Pearse added that the Finance Committee had been put under his leadership.

The chieftain said that despite the infighting within the party, the PDP’s structure in the state was still intact across electoral wards and local government areas.

Pearse said that all the 20 PDP local government chairmen and ward leaders were within the party main structure.

Speaking on PDP’s poor performance in the 2023 governorship election, Pearse blamed the development on the party’s national leadership and the gubernatorial candidate, who he said, failed to carry elders along.

“That was an exceptional election in the history of PDP. We have never had it so bad where our governorship candidate scored five per cent and the presidential candidates scored six per cent.

“What happened in the last election was that, going to the primaries, the national leadership made the mistake of handing over the selection of delegates to whom they perceived as the leader of the election at that point in time.

“The national leadership handed over the selection of delegates to the party’s Governorship Candidate, Dr Abdul-Azeez Adediran (Jandor).

“However, Jandor had just come into the PDP. It was about six or seven months when he got the opportunity to select delegates to the primary election of the PDP in Lagos State.

“So the party was in disarray, that was what happened in 2023
“The structure of the party at the ward and the local government areas did not work because the structure had rebelled against imposition. That is what happened,” Pearse recounted. (NAN)

Caretaker Committee Chairman of APC in Rivers, Chief Tony Okocha, says unless Gov. Siminalayi Fubara abides by the law, the political crisis in the state will persist.

Okocha said this at a news conference on Friday in Abuja while reacting to the recent court ruling on the state with regards to the disbursement of local government allocations.

An Abuja Federal High Court had, on Wednesday, retrained the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) from further releasing local government allocations from the Federation Account to the state.

Justice Joyce Abdulmalik, in her ruling, held that the presentation of the 2024 budget by Fubara before a four-member Rivers House of Assembly was an affront to constitutional provisions.

She described Fubara’s receipt and disbursement of monthly allocations since January 2024 as nothing short of a constitutional aberration that must not be allowed.

The judge further held that Fubara’s action in implementing an unlawful budget stood as a gross violation of the 1999 Constitution he swore to protect.

Okocha, in his reaction, said blackmailing President Bola Tinubu and Nyesom Wike, the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), over the court ruling would not solve the political crisis in the state.

He described Fubara as Wike’s political investment who was a mere civil servant before he was lifted from a state of relative political obscurity to political crescendo by the FCT minister.

Okocha further stated that the governor was brought to politics and limelight by Wike.

“Wike is not, in any way, suffocating Fubara as is being alleged.

“Blackmailing President Tinubu and Wike psychologically over the recent court ruling will not help the case in Rivers because the law has to be followed.

“We stand with and by the court, and not with any strong man’s morality. It is not right for anyone to start proclaiming self-righteousness.

“Wike is innocent in the political crisis in Rivers and should, therefore, not be dragged into it,” Okocha said.

He said the only way to bring peace to the state was for Fubara to follow the law and abide by the court ruling, adding that “the law does not recognise sentiments but facts as presented.

“Wike brought Fubara to where he is today. He lifted him from obscurity to political crescendo. Nobody is suffocating anybody. The fight in Rivers state is between Fubara and Fubara,” he said.

The APC chairman added that the political crisis would have long ended if Fubara had obeyed Tinubu’s intervention in the first place.

According to him, Fubara has been running the state without an approved budget, which is against the law.

He said it was unfortunate that those playing up unnecessary sentiments and backing the governor failed to see the illegality going on under his administration.

The way out of the political crisis, according to him, is for the governor to obey the law of the land, including the law regarding the state budget.

“We use this opportunity to speak against attempts to disparage innocent persons, namely: Nyesom Wike, the FCT minister. In all the cases in court, they are about 32, he is not a party to any of them.

“If the governor had obeyed Justice Omotoso’s judgment; if he had listened to the counsel of President Tinubu; if he had listened to the Court of Appeal recently, all of these would have disappeared,” Okocha stated.

On the recent attempt by some stakeholders and elders in the Niger Delta zone to reconcile the gladiators in Rivers crisis, Okocha said such a move was too late.

He added that there was no point crying over spilt milk, wondering where those elders were when the political crisis started.

“If you ask me, the only other hurdle to escape is the Supreme Court. What are the elders coming to do at this late hour, if they actually would want to come?

“They are the same people who told the governor that he is a know-all and do-all; they encouraged him to believe that his head was bigger than his pillow.

“They told him his powers are elastic and the governor agreed to that,” he said.

Okocha added that most of the elders had disappeared into thin air after lining their pockets while the governor was now on the hot seat.(NAN)