Again, PDP breaks into 2 •Modu Sheriff faction holds convention in P/Harcourt, •Gana group in Abuja, same day.

JUST as it happened in 2014, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), on Tuesday, again, broke into two factions, thus re-enacting the factionalisation widely believed to have sealed its fate in the 2015 elections.

The two factions in the party have resolved to hold parallel national conventions in Abuja and Port-Harcourt, this Saturday

While the main PDP under the chairmanship of Senator Ali Modu Sheriff, after its 71st National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting in Abuja, resolved to hold its convention in Port-Harcourt on May 21 as scheduled, the Concerned PDP Group, being coordinated by Professor Jerry Gana, which also inaugurated its steering committee, resolved to hold its own convention in Abuja same day.

It will be recalled that the PDP broke into two factions in 2014, namely the PDP and the New PDP, with the rival factions led by Alhaji Bamanga Tukur and Alhaji Kawu Baraje, respectively.

The latter had the G5 governors that left the PDP platform and merged with the All Progressives Congress (APC).

The new development was unfolding despite the truce said to been reached on Monday, following the intervention of governors, members of the Board of Trustees (BOT), members of the National Assembly and key stakeholders of the party.

Barely 24 hours after the Monday meeting, the Concerned PDP Stakeholders inaugurated steering committee to plan for its national convention, which they planned to hold in Abuja.

Professor Gana, who was at the Monday’s BoT meeting, was made national coordinator of the new group, while the 36 steering committee members were mandated to mobilise members of the party for the Abuja convention.

Gana group held its parallel meeting in the Abuja premises of DAAR Communications, while  journalists were not allowed into the venue.

A source at the meeting confirmed that the group would be meeting today in Abuja to fine-tune arrangements for the convention.

However, in a communiqué read by the PDP national chairman, Senator Sheriff, at the end of the NEC meeting held at the PDP national secretariat, Abuja, the party challenged the Federal Government to extend the ongoing probe of the 2015 campaign funds of the party to the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).

Senator Modu Sheriff also announced that the PDP NEC approved the conduct of fresh congresses in seven states where controversies trailed the conduct of the exercise. Among the states affected are Sokoto, Zamfara, Lagos, Yobe and Anambra. He did not disclose the two other states.

In the resolution of the NEC, it was agreed that the chairmanship of the party would be zoned to the South after the emergence of the presidential candidate in 2018.

Court nullifies S/West zonal congress

The congress held on Saturday by the South-West zone of the PDP has been declared null and void by a Federal High Court sitting in Lagos.

Justice Ibahim Buba, on Tuesday, ruled that the congress was held in defiance of a restraining order made by him on May 11.

The judge held that the court had to firmly stand in support of its own order to prevent litigants from turning court cases into a of game of chess.

The PDP South-West zonal secretary, Chief Pegba Otemolu, had, on May 11, approached Justice Buba with an ex parte application, urging the court to restrain the PDP from going ahead with the scheduled congress in the South-West.

The matter was adjourned till June 8.

‘Prof Oladipo holding PDP national secretary position’

The newly elected South-West zonal legal adviser of PDP, Mr Ojo Williams, has questioned the legality of the continuous occupation of the office of the national secretary of the party by Professor Olawale Oladipo, declaring that “since the January 11, 2013 judgment of Federal High Court presided over by Justice Abdul Kafarati was nullified by the Appeal Court on November 6, 2013, he ought to have vacated the office.”

Williams, in a release issued in Osogbo, Osun State, on Tuesday, said it was time things were done rightly in the party, by telling Professor Oladipo that he should stop parading himself as the PDP national secretary, since the Appeal Court judgment invalidating the Federal High Court judgment that paved the way for his assumption of office was yet to be set aside by a superior court.

Williams said with the Appeal Court judgment of November 6, 2013, which reinstated Oyinlola as the national secretary, and Oyinlola’s defection to the APC, the deputy national secretary of the PDP was the rightful person to have assumed the office of the national secretary in an acting capacity.

We were impersonated in suit against convention –Sheriff

A new twist has emerged on the order of a Federal High Court sitting in Lagos, which restrained the PDP from electing officers into the offices of the national chairman, national secretary and auditor at its convention scheduled for Port Harcourt, Rivers State, on Saturday.

The interlocutory order was issued on Monday by Justice I.N Buba in the suit number FHC/L/CS/613/2016, purported to have been brought before him by the acting national chairman of the PDP, Alhaji Ali Modu Sheriff, national secretary, Professor Wale Oladipo and the national auditor, Alhaji Fatai Adeyanju.

But in a letter dated May 16, 2016 and signed by him, Sheriff said neither the PDP nor himself filed the said suit upon which the order was predicated.

He explained that his name and that of the party were “used as plaintiffs” in the suit.

The PDP chairman added that he and the party did not authorise anyone to file any suit and asked the Justice Buba to, with immediate effect, expunge him and PDP from the suit.

No court order stopping PDP convention –Wike

Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers State has declared that there is no valid court order stopping the national convention of the PDP scheduled to hold in the state on Saturday.

The governor made this known during his special appearance on a television programme monitored in Port Harcourt, on Tuesday, adding that the PDP national convention would hold as scheduled.

He said a shift would be dangerous, since there would be no National Working Committee (NWC) of the party after that date, adding that he had not been served any such order stopping the convention.