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Nigeria: Convention - No Hidden Agenda, Says PDP
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This Day (Lagos)
27 November 2007
Posted to the web 27 November 2007
Chuks Okocha
Abuja
Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) yesterday said contrary to speculations, there was no room for any of its officials, including the National Chairman, Ahmadu Ali, to sit tight in office.
This is coming as one of the chairmanship aspirant, Chief Sunny Iroche, described the indefinite postponement of the covention as a sad commentary in the history of the party.
He said by the postponement, PDP is opening up itself to lots of ridicule and even litigations
He said the act has "taken the Ndigbo for granted," adding that he is vehemently opposed to it.
He, therefore, called on President Umaru Yar'Adua to intevene and announce a date not later than January 30, 2008, for the convention.
The party said Ali had no intention to perpetuate himself in office under any guise, adding that the indefinite postponement of its congresses and National Convention was not a ploy for the current officials to extend their stay in office.
PDP National Publicity Secretary, Lady Ime Udoh, while reacting to alleged sit-tight agenda of the National chairman, said there was nothing to it.
She said PDP would soon expose all its plans about the postponed National Convention and congresses to the media, as a prove that none of its officials had any motive of staying more than necessary in office.
The party's Deputy National Publicity Secretary, Chief Bayo Alao spoke more on the speculation, stressing that Ali could not have mooted the idea of extending his stay in office having been appointed by President Umaru Musa YaríAdua as an Ambassador and cleared by the Senate.
He said although, every elected officials of the party had a four year mandate to serve the PDP, it was incumbent on all of them to leave the office after the PDP National Convention which he said would not be held later than March 2008.
Said Alao, ìWe are all ready to go, but we must conduct the National Convention and Congress before we could leave the office. We are still in the office now because the of the rejection of our initial dates for the congresses and the National Convention by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
If any member of the party is insinuating that Ali has a sit-tight agenda, the person should not forget that he already has something to fall back on having emerged as an Ambassador.
ìAll of us are involved because we were elected and so it would be wrong for anyone to think that it is the National Chairman alone who could decide what would happen to the party. The power to do that lies with the National Working Committee of the party which had asked us to stay till we hold the National Convention.
Speculations are rife however that Ali has not been contented with his appointment as an Ambassador, having preferred to remain as the PDP National Chairman.
His supporters are said to have been mooting the idea of going to the court to stop the National Convention and congressed which have now been put in hold indefinitely by the NWC.
The party had last Friday announced the indefinite postponement of its National Convention and congresses siting the coming Christmas festivities and the Eid-el-kabir both of which fall in the month of December as reasons
The PDPís National Convention was initially scheduled for December 8, 2007, a date which the INEC rejected on the basis that the party failed to notify it about the convention plans 21 days ahead of the fixed dates.
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The dates of the congresses and National convention which was fixed again for the month of November and December respectively ware last week postponed indefinitely after the meeting of the NWC.
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