Ikenga Ugochinyere, a member of the House of Representatives who represents the Ideato Federal Constituency, stated Wednesday that 40 lawmakers and two governors are willing to leave the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the upcoming weeks.
Ugochinyere voiced his disappointment at the PDP’s unresolved crisis, claiming that instead of taking action, the party’s leaders remained silent and let the problem worsen.
Speaking to reporters in Akokwa, Ideato North, Imo State, the legislator urged the National Working Committee (NWC) of the party to remove Nyesom Wike, the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, and Samuel Anyanwu from the PDP.
He said, “I must also inform you that I have also confirmed that 40 lawmakers elected on the platform of the party are going to decamp from the party in the coming weeks. Look at the state in which we are today. Lawmakers are decamping in mass. Governors are decamping. Two extra governors are about to decamp. I can confirm this.”
Speaking further, he said, “Those days that we were so scared would come are now here with us. We cried, we fought, and we begged the PDP leaders to stand up and rescue the party. We told them that there are imposters in the party in the persons of Umar Damagum and Samuel Anyanwu.
“However, PDP governors played with this. PDP stakeholders played with this. We said if the right thing was not done, this party would disintegrate before our own eyes. We said that if Alex Ekwueme, Solomon Lar, Adamu Ciroma and all the founding fathers of this party were alive today and were seeing the goings-on, they would cry over how the once biggest opposition platform in Africa had been turned into a political dog that barked without biting.
“We warned of the threats that these men (Anyanwu and Damagum) portend and the consequences. Today, look at the state of our party. Our governors are jumping ship. Our lawmakers are jumping ship. Our members are jumping ship in different parts of the country. Come to think about it, we may blame outsiders or those who have decided to work with the APC. But what about ourselves, our governors? What did the governors do, categorically, to resolve this problem?
“When Ayu was removed, the right thing to have been done was to convene a National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting and find a replacement from the North-Central. However, when the time for NEC came, our governors would say it was Salah and Muslim people were travelling, then shifted it. When they came back, they would say it is Easter, and on it went until this moment. Is that not shameful behaviour? For two years, the leaders of this party could not find a solution to these problems because they decided to sabotage the same platform that gave them whatever they have today.
“For two good years, Damagum has stayed with Ayanwu to carry out a very simple task, which is to decimate the party. I heard Damagum (reacting to the decamping of Delta Governor), saying that our faith is in God’s hands. That is rubbish and arrant nonsense. Damagum, why are you bringing God into this? How can our faith be in God’s hands?
Where was God when you refused to allow an NEC meeting for the North-Central to appoint an acting replacement? Where was God when you kept on shifting it? Where was God when you filed a matter in court against our own PDP in support of those lawmakers who defected from PDP to the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Rivers State, which led us to the crisis of emergency today in Rivers?
