Fresh Hurdle Threatens PDP Mini Convention

Anxiety has continued to mount in the ranks of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) as it prepares for its special convention to fill existing vacancies in the National Working Committee (NWC).
The PDP had, last week, announced the postponement of the special convention earlier fixed for July 20 following the resignation of 16 members of the party’s NWC as a result of what an Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) report likened to procedural lapses it observed in the emergence of the affected officials.
The real reasons for the postponement have been hazy even as they were kept in close wraps. The party had cited the coming Ramadan season as the reason for its decision to postpone the convention for which nomination forms were already out.

Regardless of the official reason for the postponement, a member of the Special Convention Planning Committee confided in LEADERSHIP that the committee ‘took cognizance of possible legal implications of some protests from certain quarters’.
Posing fresh hurdles to the PDP are Engr Segun Oni and Prince Olagunsoye Oyinlola, former south west zonal chairman and national secretary respectively, who have protested against the planned mini convention of the party.
The former governors of Ekiti and Osun states were booted out of office through the judiciary but are in court challenging their removal.
Curiously, the PDP has declared vacant the position of the national secretary even as the special convention scheduled to be preceded by a zonal congress in the south west was yet to take place.
“What we are trying to do is to avoid unnecessary litigations that may ambush us as we plan the convention; you should know that already there are issues regarding certain positions and we need to be careful in the place to avoid pitfalls.
“Last week, we received a letter and we took cognisance of the possible legal implications of some protests from certain quarters and we are reviewing all what we had planned before the protest letter came in.
“I think in the next few weeks, the situation would have been clearer for the committee to give a specific date on the south-west zonal congress and the convention because we have asked an in-house legal team to look at the issues raised by the protest”, he said.
in reference to Oyinlola’s protest letter last week.
In a letter dated June 24, 2013 titled “Clarification of the Position of the PDP National Secretary” and addressed to the chairman of the National Convention Committee, Professor Jerry Gana, Oyinlola averred that it would be contemptuous of the court for the party to conduct such election, since PDP should lead the way in the adherence to the rule of law.
“I wish to remind you that I was removed by a Federal High Court order which is being vigorously contested and pursued at the Court of Appeal. I am constrained to point out that I have the constitutional right to go up to the Supreme Court in exercise of my fundamental human rights, which I am fiercely and vigorously protecting.
“My modest submission is that the National Convention Committee would be trampling on some provisions of not only the PDP constitution, but also the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (1999) as amended, if it goes ahead to conduct an election into the office of National Secretary, which is still in contention”, he said.

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