The Board of Trustees (BoT) of the main opposition party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), has rejected President Bola Tinubu’s emergency rule in Rivers State.
 
The BoT also faulted the National Assembly for ratifying the President’s action via a mere voice vote instead of the constitutional two-thirds majority. The body demanded the immediate reversal of the emergency rule, saying that it was a gross violation of the Nigerian Constitution.
  
Chairman of the PDP BoT and former Senate President, Adolphus Wabara, in a statement on behalf of the body yesterday, said the President’s action could only be imagined during a military era.
   
The statement read: “The Board of Trustees (BoT) of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), vehemently, and in very strong terms, condemns President Bola Tinubu’s declaration of a state of emergency in Rivers State, suspending the democratically-elected Governor, Deputy Governor, and members of the State House of Assembly.      His decision to replace them with a Sole Administrator is undemocratic and alien to our Constitution.
  
“In my capacity as the Chairman of BoT of the PDP, and a former Senate President, I call for the reversal of this assault on our democracy. It’s sad and disheartening that the President ignored my earlier advice to ignore those calling for emergency rule in Rivers State.

NEVERTHELESS, a group within the PDP, known as the Conference of Professionals (CP-PDP), expressed shock and dismay over what it called “the manipulative and overbearing action of the All Progressives Congress (APC)-led leadership of the National Assembly in approving the unconstitutional suspension of a democratically elected governor and the legislature of a state by Tinubu in violation of the provisions of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 (as amended).”
   
It described the action of the National Assembly as a total betrayal of public trust, demanding the immediate resignation of the Senate President and the Speaker of the House of Representatives.

MEANWHILE, the PDP in Enugu State said, at the weekend, that the Supreme Court ruling on the contentious National Secretary position has restored the supremacy of political parties in the determination of its internal affairs.

The party stated that the judgment was a victory for the country’s democracy.  It added that the judgment reaffirmed the stance of the party, and emphatically settled the emergence of Sunday Udeh-Okoye as the substantive National Secretary of the party.
  
A statement from the party signed by its State Publicity Secretary, Uche Obute, stated that Okoye had been duly nominated, endorsed and ratified through the internal mechanism of the PDP statutory organs and bodies in line with the provisions of the PDP Constitution (as amended in 2017), adding that his nomination was also accepted by the National Executive Committee (NEC) of the party.
 
Also, CP-PDP also backed Ude-Okoye as the party’s National Secretary. In a statement made available to newsmen yesterday, signed by its Protem National Coordinator, Obinna Nwachukwu, the group said it took the stance after a review of the issues in the party, as well as the recent Supreme Court judgement.
 
It said it welcomed the judgement which decisively affirmed the supremacy of political parties in the management of their internal affairs, including the determination of its officials, membership and even nomination of candidates for election, among others, to which the courts have no jurisdiction.
  
The group also urged the leadership of the PDP to sanitise the party by immediately expelling the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) from the party.