Why Wike was permitted to attend national caucus meeting – Senate Minority Leader, Moro
Senator Comrade Abba Patrick Moro, PDP, Benue South, has explained why Minister of the Federal Capital Territory Administration, FCTA, Nyesom Wike, was allowed to attend the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, National Caucus meeting, which preceded the party’s National Executive Committee meeting last week.
According to Moro, Wike could not have been barred from attending the meeting because he had not been proven guilty of any crime and penalised by the party.
The Minority Leader added that if the party’s disciplinary committee, under by former Senate President Bukola Saraki, found Wike guilty of the alleged antiparty acts and sanctioned him, he would stop attending party meetings.
Moro said the survival of Amb. Umar Lliya Damagum as Acting National Chairman of PDP was not a victory or defeat for anybody but a decision that was unanimously agreed on by the relevant stakeholders for the party to forge ahead.
Senator Moro’s reaction was against the backdrop of rumours in some quarters that Amb. Damagum’s survival, against call for his resignation, was victory for the former governor of River State, Nyesom Wike, and a defeat for PDP Presidential candidate in the 2023 general elections, Atiku Abubakar.
In a statement on Sunday by his Media Adviser, Emmanuel Eche’Ofun John, Senator Moro said the activities and inactivities of PDP should not be translated to Atiku and Wike.
He said the whole issue was not about victory or defeat for anybody but about PDP; about providing an alternative formidable platform for Nigerians to look up to.
Moro said, “We cannot translate the entirety of PDP’s activities and inactivities to Wike and Atiku, out of millions of other members of the party across the country who also have their own thinking and reasons for being in the party.
On why the National Caucus of the party allowed Nyesom Wike into their meeting, the Minority Leader said, “The constitution of our party is very clear on who is a member and who is not a member of the caucus of the party and I dare say, at this point, that as a former governor who is still a member of the party, Nyesom Wike is a member of the National Caucus of the party.
“If actions had been taken immediately after the elections and people who are perceived to have acted contrary to the desires and yearnings of the PDP have been sanctioned, then we can say that having been expelled or suspended, you can’t be here, but as it is, non of such actions has been taken, so you can’t just ban people from attending meetings.
“One of the fallouts of the last NEC meeting was the resuscitation of the Reconciliation and Disciplinary Committee, which is saddled with the responsibility of identifying the area of antiparty and the dramatis personae involved in the activities, and recommend appropriate punitive measures against those who have been found guilty to serve as deterrent to future occurrence.
“Unfortunately, that hasn’t been done, and so to that extent, as a voluntary organization, if the members involved insist they are still members of the party, until actions are taken by the Reconciliation and Disciplinary Committe we want to take that they are still members of the party.”
On expectations from the next NEC meeting scheduled for August 15 as it concerns the position of the National Chairman of the party, Moro who noted that the party’s constitution had a well spelt out succession plan, said, “The constitution of our party has a well spelt-out succession plan. Section 35 (3C) states that where a vacancy exists, someone from the zone of the immediate past occupier of the office shall be appointed by NEC to complete the tenure of the person who vacated the office.
“For the position of the National Chairman, we will look at the succession plan of the party, in accordance with the constitutional provisions, and produce a replacement for Senator Iyorchia Ayu from North Central now that he has heeded to our plea and withdrawn his case from the court. We will go to the next NEC meeting with open minds and invoke the relevant sections of the constitution to produce his replacement.”
Senator Moro who appealed to members and stakeholders of the party to have some level of circumspection and restraints in their actions and utterances so as not to further polarize the party, assured that everything humanly possible would be done to put the party on its winning ways, to rescue Nigerians from the grinding poverty and sufferings that the ruling APC has plunged them into.