Damagum Dares PDP Governors

The acting National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), IIiya Umar Damagum appears to have drawn  battle lines with the governors elected on the platform of the party with his handing over of the party’s structure in Rivers State to the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nyesom Wike.

The governors had in their separate resolutions after their meetings in Enugu and Taraba states, resolved to engage the Damagum-led National Working Committee (NWC) to revisit the party’s congresses in Rivers State to ensure that Governor Siminalayi Fubara took over the control of the party’s structure.

State governors in Nigeria are by tradition, the leaders of their political parties in their respective states.

But the Damagum-led leadership flouted this tradition, snubbed the governors and recognised the congresses held by Wike’s loyalists.

However, the latest development in the PDP did not come as a surprise, given the recent claim by the governorship candidate of the party in Kogi State in the 2023 general election, Senator Dino Melaye, who alleged that the party had been commercialised and privatised.

But for daring to expose the alleged rot in the party, Melaye was suspended by his Ayetoro/Iluagba Ward 1 on Thursday, September 12, 2024, while plots were being perfected for his local government, state and the national leadership of the party to affirm his suspension.

To prevent the National Executive Committee (NEC) of the party from overturning its decision on Rivers, the NWC also postponed the NEC meeting of the party, originally set for September 26, to October 24.

With the action of the NWC, Wike has become the leader of the party in the state, contrary to the tradition of political parties.

In an open letter he wrote to Damagum dated April 24, 2024, foremost Ijaw leader and elder statesman, Chief Edwin Clark, had accused him of doing Wike’s bidding, and urged him to resign to prevent the party from collapsing on him.

Perhaps it was this lack of internal party order and discipline in the PDP that made the presidential candidate of the NNPP in the 2023 election, Rabiu Kwankwaso, to describe the PDP as dead.

With Damagum’s show of disdain for the governors, the outcome of the October 24 NEC meeting of the party will reveal whether the governors have the political will to sanction him and his NWC, or not.

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