The battle between the Old PDP and the New PDP has taken another dimension with the breakaway PDP accusing President Jonathan of sacking ministers sympathetic to their course. This was contained in a press statement received via e mail on Friday Morning from the National Publicity Secretary of New PDP, Chief Eze Chukwuemeka Eze. According to Eze “No matter the flimsy excuses being given by the Federal Government over the sack of nine of our candidates from the Federal Executive Council (FEC), the truth of the matter is that these innocent Ministers were sacked because they were either nominated by us or sympathetic to our cause”.
The New PDP spokesman further stated that ”We are aware that these Ministers had been under surveillance and denied the necessary tools to work with – in short; they were programmed to fail immediately they were indentified with us. Sadly, these innocent Ministers have been sacked while the most corrupt Ministers whose atrocious activities are well known to Nigerians are retained”.
Lamenting the disgrace of Mama Pepple, the New PDP spokesman said that “The most pitiable case of these sacked Ministers is that of our mother, the Minister of Housing, Ms Amal Pepple, whose crime was approaching Mr. President to plead with him, even kneeling down to beg him to forgive Gov. Amaechi for whatever sins he is assumed to have committed against him”.
Regarding the high handedness of the old PDP, The New PDP likened it to the days of Dictator Sanni Abacha. According to Eze ” Against the spirit of the Constitution of Nigeria that clearly stipulates freedom of association for Nigerians – even the freedom of factionalisation of a political party as stated by INEC, our people are being hounded in various states of the Federation. In flagrant and outright breach of the Constitution and abuse of the rule of law, today our National Secretariat remains sealed by the Police”.
“To add insult to our injury, our Rivers State Secretariat just opened for business has also been sealed by the Police, who claim to be acting on orders from above. What is more, the Police also last night barred Gov. Amaechi and his guests (about 120 mainly former Speakers in the country) from entering the Governor’s Residence through the private gate of the state Government House, Port Harcourt. And we still claim that we are in a democratic society! Surely, even the days of Abacha were not like this!
“Indeed, General Sani Abacha must be lamenting in his grave that Nigerians wrongly abused him considering the high degree of impunities being encouraged in a democratic set up, with the Police being used as a tool to haunt political opponents”
Giving reasons why PDP suspended some of their members Eze stated that “Illegally suspend a sitting Governor (Rt. Hon. Amaechi) against the spirit of PDP Constitution, soon following it with the suspension of Governor Aliyu Wamakko of Sokoto State for not picking the calls of the tyrannical National Chairman of the party, Alhaji Bamanga Tukur.
As if this is not enough, they went ahead to suspend Senator Andy Uba for winning the Anambra State PDP Governorship Primaries just because they preferred another aspirant. And from nowhere they suspended PDP’s former National Vice Chairman, Dr. Sam Jaja!”
“Not yet satisfied, these enemies of democracy had the guts to remove the names of Governor Murtala Nyako and that of one of the founders of PDP, former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, from the delegates list of Adamawa State for their failed Special National Convention. Haba! What type of politics is this? And these people still want us at our ages to keep quiet and allow them to shave our heads while we do nothing! God forbid!!”
Sources within the presidency said that the sacked ministers are disloyal to President Jonathan. According to one of them who pleaded anonymity, the sacked ministers failed to stick to the president in his moments of travail and as such does not deserve a space around him. He warned that though Jonathan is ready for reconciliation, he will not harbor spies and fifth columists within his ranks. He asked the affected ministers to show gratefulness to the president for the opportunity and reaffirmed that their replacement will be politicians that will take on the rebel governors in their home state the way Wike is doing in Rivers State.
