Dr Agbo Emmanuel, Benue State chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP who is also the chairman of the congress of state chairmen of the party spoke with newsmen recently on the crises rocking the party where he urged the aggrieved members to make concession. He also gives reasons for steps being taken to strengthen the party at the state level. SUNDAY OGLI was there with reports
Why aggrieved members of PDP should shift ground–PDP chieftain
Dr Agbo Emmanuel, Benue State chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP who is also the chairman of the congress of state chairmen of the party spoke with newsmen recently on the crises rocking the party where he urged the aggrieved members to make concession. He also gives reasons for steps being taken to strengthen the party at the state level. SUNDAY OGLI was there with reports.
WE said that all resolutions of the convention should be by vote. What that meant is that there is no room for consensus and voice vote; there is no room for adoption. I think, unaware of that provision and because a few positions were not contested in the contest of two, three people running election, we felt that for those not running, if Convention adopted them as elected it would suffice. But INEC thought differently; that if this is your modus operandi, you must strictly abide by it. What it meant then was that, three, four officers were actually voted for because there had one or two people running elections against them and those votes were counted and somebody won. And do, those ones, in the context of INEC meet the PDP guideline for the 2012 convention. Those who would have ordinarily returned unopposed because nobody was running against them as no balloting took place, INEC said well, in your guideline, there is nothing like adoption and were those people not elected by the 2012 convention?. The party met and said well, as a law abiding party that is providing governance for this great country, we cannot be lawless. If the supervisory body that supervises the functions of all political parties said you have an executive team that have unelected member, what are we going to do other than for you to honourably resign and then there will be a mini convention to fill that vacancy.
A few people felt that or were not satisfied in their own perception of how the national chairman was running the party. I’ve said that the opportunity provided by the resignation of these other people should have affected him but unfortunately that observation was not raised in the office of the national chairman because in the case of the national chairman there was balloting in 2012. And so, he was not affected by the observations of INEC. In the same vein, the national financial secretary, even the national secretary and one other position; these people were also affected, they were not to resign.
During the build up to the mini national convention, they thought it would have been a clean sweep to give room for a complete election or replacement of all the offices as the case may be but again that would have gone against whatever were the observations of the report of INEC. And so, we went through national convention, a few of our brothers and sisters chose a walk out of the convention went to another venue and declared the New PDP. We thought they had something differently in their minds if they pronounced another political party. And so, I’m comfortable that they said it’s a New PDP. The bottom line is that they agree that they are members of PDP, new or old; they are still within the family of PDP. If you are a man that is fortunate to have 50, 60, 70, 80 children and some are aggrieved, I think what you need to do is to sit down and see how you can bring peace back to your house. Since they have not said they want to go and start bearing another father’s name and are still bearing your name as their legitimate father, all you do is to listen to them and try to see how you can solve those problems. Our aggrieved brothers should put their cards on the table and let’s take them item by item. Generally in life, when you are into any negotiation of any form and you stand in one place without making sacrifices then no movement is made. And if we must move towards a common ground, people must shelve some of their very hard positions.
Where does Benue PDP stand, is it with the New PDP or the old?
Well, I can tell you with all authority that all the organs of the party in Benue are intact. I’ve been in close contact with the governor, I’ve been in close contact epithet the chairman of our elders committee, I’ve in contact with the chairman of the National Assembly, the distinguished President of the Senate and coming back home I’ve in contact with the leadership of our local Assembly, the entire of Benue is one. As far as we are concerned the National Chairman still remains Bamanga Tukur, we have no doubt, we have no issues with the leadership of the party as with the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
You said the party is one in Benue but some prominent members of the party like Emmanuel Jime and Hembe who are members of the House of Representatives boycotted your convention because of their sympathy for the breakaway group. What is your response to that?
I want to state without any iota of doubt, I was a parliamentarian, I was in the state Assembly as far back as 1992. The Assembly’s fundamental procedure still my day to day activities in life. One of the distinguished members that you just mentioned, Hon Hembe is standing before a committee. The committee has not given me its final report, I’m not speaking for him bit Jime if he was not there he may not have been informed. We already have reports about anti party activities of Hembe for which I want only want to speak after I confirm the report. Once that report is ready, at that point I will be able to tell you if actually those already are true or not founded. So, I want to believe that his non appearance at the convention, he too was not there at the other group so you cannot say it is because he had issues and wanted to go. I want to believe and we should take it for now that just the two of them, even some principal functionaries were not there simply because either they not available in the country at the point in time or they well ill, so many things could be responsible for why somebody would not be on the convention ground but I think with every air of authority that all the institutions of the party in the state, for now none, I use none are aggrieved that they want to join those who are in the new PDP. So, without fear of contradiction, all of us are still within the same family, believing in the leadership both Bamanga Tukur and the President.
About two weeks ago, the state chapter of the party in conjunction with our elders committee have packaged what I can call a programme that will further strengthen the party in the state. We woke up with the complete non-existence of the opposition party when we were heading for the 2011 election and treated them with kid gloves and suffered one or two casualties to the level of losing a senate seat and one or two seats in the National Assembly. Going by the preponderance in terms of the party, PDP on the ground in Benue, we are not supposed to lose any seat all not to talk of almost ten seats in the state House of Assembly. And so, providing leadership, I think I need to be more proactive and I need to go right back to the basics, I need to wake up and tell our people that look, as we approach 2015, this idea that all was well, that the approach we have in 2011 that made us to be hit below the belt by a nearly nonexistent political party, that we should we shouldn’t use that approach.
What is the reason behind the ward meeting being convened by your party. Some believe is is because of the crises rocking the party?
The programme is to be sure that from now until we get into 2015 general elections, every other two months, all the wards, the 276 council wards, a date will be generally taken where all members of the party in the ward will meet and out of this meeting, we expect that in sequence, whatever are the issues in any ward that will threaten the strength of our party in such a ward, we’ll come to the centre where we will now go and attack it. And after every two months, whatever are the issues would have arisen from the meetings that we held at the various wards, local governments will now meet at the third month. That meeting will now collate whatever issues that have arisen consequent upon the month A, month B in that same effort, the zone will collate whatever is supposed to be the fallout of these meetings from the local governments and transmit same to the state secretariat where an expanded meeting of elders, stakeholders and leaders will be convoked. At that meeting we will bring issues that have come from your local government or from your zone and those affected will equally be invited into those meetings to assist the leadership in the state to nip in the bud any arising problem far ahead of 2015, whether they are issues related to leadership in the ward, whether they are issues that are personal; between two major characters of our party, whether they are issues of candidacy, whatever the issues, as long as they are issues that are affecting our position and our hold at the various wards and local governments, we want to get them sorted out.