Seven former deputy national officers of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), have explained why they resigned their positions as members of the National Executive Council.
The seven national officers are Deputy National Publicity Secretary, Diran Odeyemi; Deputy National Legal Adviser, Ahmed Bello; Deputy National Women Leader, Umoru Hadizat
Others are the Deputy National Auditor Divine Amina Arong; Deputy National Organizing Secretary, Hassan Yakubu; and Deputy National Financial Secretary, Irona Alphonsus.
The officers attributed their resignation to the incompetence of the PDP National Chairman, Prince Uche Secondus.
One of the officers cited bad treatment by the Secondus led National Working Committee (NWC) leadership of the deputies, since they were elected in 2017.
“Since our election in 2017, we (deputy national officers) have only met with Secondus thrice. It is not as if he called us; on those three occasions, we sought audience with him.
“To him, we are just a necessary evil to be tolerated but never to be catered for. We all have our constituencies and our followers.
It appears they see us as nothing but appendages forced on them by the party’s constitution,” he said.
Odeyemi, who was in London, United Kingdom, while declining comment on the development, aligned himself with the decision of his colleagues to resign.
The PDP National Publicity Secretary, Mr Kola Ologbondiyan, confirming the development, said that the NWC had received the resignation letters.
Ologbondiyan said that the party leadership would look into the matter and adopt the internal mechanism to resolve it.
The NWC of our great party at its meeting today received the notice of the resignation from deputies who are elected members of the National Executive Committee.
“The meeting of the NWC and the deputies immediately took place to dialogue on the issues that were raised.
“The party will look into the grievances raised by members of NEC as well as members of the National Working Committee.
“The internal conflict resolution mechanism of our party has also been immediately activated to put these issues behind us.
We call on all the leaders, stakeholders and members of our great party to remain calm as we collectively resolve these issues,” Ologbondiyan said.
The National Youth leader, SKE Ude-Okoye, also briefing newsmen in his office at Wadata House, the party National Secretariat, Abuja.
He slammed Secondus for incompetence in managing the affairs of the party, saying he lacked managerial capacity to manage PDP.
He said that Secondus had made sure that many departments of the party did not function as effectively as it ought to function.
The Chairman has nothing to offer to the party only to come here and deceive us.
“There is a sharp division in our NWC right now, not only me, many more NWC members are more aggrieved than myself.
“Today I have asked him in our NWC meeting to resign his position as the chairman of this party because he cannot lead this party to victory,” Ude-Okoye said.
He called on PDP leaders, the governors, the founding fathers, youths and women to rise up to rescue the party from Secondus incompetent leadership.
“Secondus is not willing to take us to anywhere. He is just there to make sure that he enriches himself.
“I am here to make it very clear to all Nigerians that if Secondus does not resign from the party, I am going to leave the party for him to eat the party and own the party.
“The governors, if they don’t wade into this matter right now, I assure Nigerians that within the next three, four days, my letter will be public,” Ude-Okoye said.
He added that more officers of the NWC would still resign because of Secondus.
