PDP youth, women storm court, want Secondus to step down

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THE crisis rocking the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) over the chairmanship position, yesterday deepened as angry youth and women stormed the Federal High Court premises, in Abuja, demanding the immediate stepping down of the Acting National Chairman, Chief Uche Secondus.

The case instituted by former Special Adviser to former President Goodluck Jonathan, Alhaji Ahmed Gulak, against Secondus and the PDP was to come up yesterday in Abuja. Gulak is asking that Secondus vacates the seat for somebody from the North-East to take over and complete the tenure of Alhaji Adamu Mu’azu, who resigned after the March, 2015 presidential election. Gulak is pleading with the court to restrain Secondus from parading himself as Acting Chairman and to compel him to cause a replacement from the North-East as provided for in the party’s constitution.

The case did not hold because the presiding judge was attending the All Judges Conference in Abuja.

At the court premises yesterday, angry youth led by their leader from Delta State, Prince Afoke Okporuwa, said they could not watch as the PDP suffered a free fall, admonished Secondus to adhere to the party’s constitution by stepping down.

The youth, carrying placards with various inscriptions had taken over the court premises as early as 11 am for the case, which was initially slated for 2pm. However, the case was adjourned to Monday, November 30, 2015.

Addressing the press at the court premises, Okporuwa stated that the youth and women were in the court to unequivocally ask Secondus to go. “We are here today to state categorically that we do not support illegality, we do not support impunity; we do not support usurpation and more significantly, we do not support political exclusion,” he said amid shouts of “Secondus Must Go” from the over 2, 000 youth and women with him.

Okporuwa stated that as stakeholders, the youth and women were not going to fold their arms, while Secondus accomplished his desire to kill the party.

Speaking at the same venue, the litigant, Alhaji Gulak told journalists that Secondus had frustrated every effort to get the party to adhere to its constitutional requirement of replacing the chairman with someone from the North-East, hence the resort to judicial remedy to redress the situation.

Source: The Sun