PDP decries arrest, detention of members, says intimidation won’t save APC in 2019

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) yesterday declared that it would no longer condone what it called the arbitrary arrest and detention of its leaders in the guise of anti-corruption war.

The opposition party said that the attack on the principle of rule of law by the All Progressives Congress (APC)-led government of President Muhammadu Buhari could cripple democracy in Nigeria.

This warning, was given by the National Chairman of the party, Uche Secondus, when members of PDP Board of Trustees (BoT) paid the National Working Committee (NWC) a courtesy call at the party’s national secretariat, Wadata House, Abuja.

Secondus noted that the rate at which leaders of the party were being harassed was getting out of hand.

The National Chairman was specifically angry over the harassment of the former President of the Senate, David Mark, by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), adding, “there is no where in the world where a former Senate president has been harassed like this before.

“APC government should stop intimidating our leaders, we will no longer take it; enough is enough. They don’t need to attack us, they should fulfill what they promised us. Enough of this, we are not in a military era! What I am telling them is that God is not sleeping. When the time comes, the people will speak through their votes.”

Boasting that the PDP would take over power in 2019, Secondus said: “We handed over freely in 2015 and they should be prepared to handover to us, no amount of intimidation will distract Nigerians.”

And at a retreat the PDP organised for its officers at state, zonal and national levels in Abuja yesterday, Secondus said the party had given himself and other officers serious assignment of reclaiming power in 2019.

“The mandate they gave to us is special and of a very great size; to rebuild and re-position our party with a view to regaining the power we lost in 2015. Rebuilding trust is not an easy task but that is exactly what we have been charged to do by our teeming members across the country and in diaspora. But we do not need a long period for recovery more so when the ruling party APC has shown clearly by its actions that it never came to govern” he stated.

Deputy President of the Senate, Ike Ekweremadu charged PDP National Working Committee (NWC) to ensure transparent and credible primaries ahead of the 2019 general election.

He blamed the party’s defeat in the 2015 general election on lack of internal democracy that manifested in the forms of imposition of candidates and disregard for the party’s constitution.

Also speaking, the Chairman of the PDP Board of Trustees (BoT), Ambassador Walid Jibrin revealed that BoT never supported Senator Modu Sheriff’s attempt to kill the PDP, just as he called on members of the party to unite and support Seriake Dickson led reconciliation committee.

The BoT, however recommended that the new NWC should visit all chairmanship aspirants that lost and their key supporters.

It also recommended that the new NWC should “deal with the various petitions, organise a retreat for all party organs, revisit the issue of the new party secretariat, revisit the biometric registration of members and avoid anything that will lead to invitation of unnecessary court cases.”