The National Secretary of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Senator Samuel Anyanwu, has dared the governors elected on the platform of the party.
Anyanwu said he was elected into the position at the PDP National Convention for four years and so he cannot be removed by a handful of party men.
According to him, the PDP Governors’ Forum’s decision to try to supplant an elected national officer of the party is an affront to the nation’s laws and the PDP’s constitution that cannot stand.
Speaking with Journalists yesterday, Anyanwu, reacting to the governors’ decision on Monday during their meeting in Ibadan, the Oyo State capital, stated that immediately after the Easter holidays, he would return to Abuja and resume straightaway at his office at the PDP National Secretariat in Wadata Plaza, Abuja, because there was no vacancy there for anyone to dare occupy.
PDP Governors Forum on Monday dumped Anyanwu, appointing a temporary National Secretary, just as
The recommendation was part of the resolutions reached during an emergency meeting of PDP governors.
The Governors proposed that the party’s Deputy National Secretary should temporarily assume the role of National Secretary until a substantive appointment is made from the South East Zone.
Senator Anyanwu said, “I remain the National Secretary of the PDP; this is not the first time that some people are trying a shortcut that falls short of the PDP constitution and contradicts the orders of the court,” Anyanwu stated, warning that those moving the PDP Governors’ Forum in such direction are not helping the party.
According to him, the Supreme Court judgment of March explicitly invalidated two previous judgements that all those involved in the proxy war against him had relied upon, while a subsisting Federal High Court order of January this year clearly restrains the PDP, its leaders, its Deputy National Secretary, Setonji Koshoedo or any other person from acting as the party’s National Secretary.
Anyanwu said, “It seems that they deliberately want to kill the PDP today and tomorrow, blame Wike for it; at the governors’ meeting, the party’s National Legal told them that such decision on the position of PDP National Secretary’s position is wrong, that the Supreme Court had spoken on the matter.”
Pointing out that no provision in the party’s constitution allows a handful of privileged partymen to unilaterally invalidate the PDP constitution or the decision taken at a national convention that elected him as National Secretary for a four-year term in 2021, the National Secretary noted that before this week’s decision by a meeting of ten PDP governors, a meeting of twenty-five self-chosen South East PDP caucus had tried to supplant him with their nominee before the Supreme Court ruling of March 21 explicitly invalidated all their efforts.
Anyanwu further emphasized that as his lawyer has submitted the Supreme Court judgment to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), every right-thinking person knows that there cannot be any valid correspondence between INEC and PDP without his signature and that of the party’s national chairman — an issue that can put the party’s candidate in great jeopardy if someone else illegitimately signs as PDP National Secretary.
