Concerned about the need to reposition the party and begin early preparations before the 2027 elections, the National Executive Council of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has directed state party chairmen to submit comprehensive reports.
Shortly before they entered a closed-door session at the PDP national headquarters in Abuja on Tuesday, March 26, the party’s acting national chairman, Ambassador Ilyas Damagun told state chairmen led by former minister and chairman of the forum of PDP chairmen, Felix Hassan Hyet, that the interactive meeting was called towards finding strategic solutions to the party’s challenges.
PDP national organizing secretary, Captain Umar Bature (rtd) who addressed the meeting at length emphasised the need to review the party’s leadership positions at ward, local government, and State levels nationwide and also deal with elements doing anti-party activities.
He said: “Lots of agitations are coming from party members to suspend this (person), suspend that (person) but you are the ones that are in charge of those states; you are to tell us who did anti-party activities and who did not do such so, based on that, PDP NWC will take the decision.
“Write to us and tell us what transpired, no matter what happened,” said Bature while emphasizing the need for the party headquarters to have comprehensive reports on all those elements that perpetrated anti-party activities in various states during the 2023 general elections and the subsequent ones.
According to Bature, the Tuesday meeting would kick-start a review of the tenure of those in party executive councils at the ward, local government, and state levels.
Bature said: “We are here to review the tenure of about 26 states, in terms of the ward, local government, and state; if you recall, most of the current executives in the states were elected four years ago, where congress was conducted on a staggered basis due to COVID-19 issues.
“Now, we have about four to five states that their tenure has expired from the ward up to the state levels, that is Edo, Bayelsa, Gombe and Rivers State and there are others which are staggered; so, in order not to create a vacuum or go into crisis, that is why we have called this meeting.
“Also, we have issues and crises in various states and we decided to call you for this meeting so as to interact with you on the way forward, pending when the NEC will sit and decide on all these.
“Also if there are vacancies due to death and resignation, please don’t replace any name, don’t fix another person for issues that will come up later.
“If this meeting decides that everybody will go as caretaker, leave the exco the way they are; submit the list to us as it is, if there are 15 people and five have joined another party, submit the remaining ten, don’t replace them.
“After the elections, we expected the state chapters to give us their reports, that is the post-2023 election result but a lot of the states have not submitted their reports and we need those reports to be compiled for the next NEC meeting.
“I also want the acting Chairman to call on the Chairman of Cross River to tell us what is happening in the state because there are so many things happening and we are hearing in the media, we really need to know what is happening,” the PDP National Organizing Secretary stated.