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The Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nyesom Wike, has mounted a robust defence of the Peoples Democratic Party’s (PDP) National Executive Committee (NEC) decision to appoint a committee to oversee the party’s affairs, insisting that any attempt to ignore the move would amount to plunging the party into chaos.
Speaking during a media parley on Monday in the Rivers State capital, Port Harcourt, on the party’s internal leadership crisis, Wike dismissed claims that the party’s NEC acted outside its powers, stressing that the tenure of key party officers had clearly elapsed.
“Those of them who believe in that convention are already abdicated,” he said, pointing out that the National Secretaries, Legal Advisors, Deputy National Legal Advisors and Organising Secretaries had all acknowledged that “our tenure will expire December 9th.”
He also underscored his authority to speak on the matter, repeating that he was a member of the NEC and that the NEC met precisely to prevent a leadership void.
“NEC met and said, look, we cannot allow a vacuum. There cannot be a vacuum,” he argued, asking a fundamental question: once the tenures expired, “who will now pilot the affairs of the party?” He quipped.
The former Rivers State governor also took aim at the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), revealing that the party was prepared to take legal action and maintaining that it had already shown respect for the rule of law.
Drawing a firm line, Wike insisted that only one authority currently speaks for the PDP. “As it is today, the appropriate authority that can talk about PDP is the Chair of the Committee,” he said, dismissing rival claims to leadership. “These are the people who came up for the convention. They are not recognised. And INEC has said it.”
However, he accused INEC of making a critical error by suggesting there was no committee, and in his view, refusing to acknowledge the committee is not just irregular but dangerous.
