Leaders of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) on Tuesday expressed opposing views over the unending crisis rocking the party.

While the Deputy National Publicity Secretary of the party, Ibrahim Abdullahi, blamed the former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar for the crisis in the party, House of Representatives member, Ikengha Ugochinyere blamed the Acting National Chairman, Amb. Umar Damagum and the former governor of Rivers state, Nyesom Wike.

Narrating the ordeal in PDP, Ugochinyere noted that lawmakers and other stakeholders are decamping from PDP because the symbol of the party, which is an umbrella, is no longer wide enough to cover them.

Ugochinyere said aside Wike, who he claimed has taken a job to run an errand for All Progressives Congress (APC), Damagum’s presence as Acting Chairman of the party is causing serious problems for the party.

Speaking at a conference titled “Fix PDP To Fix Nigeria,” Ugochinyere said, “We seem to be working for different people and different interests now.

“But we need to come back to realise that we are the opposition and restructure ourselves along that opposition line. The way you have opposition in Senegal, in Ghana, in other parts of West Africa.”

According to Ugochinyere, “we need to ask ourselves, why are we not playing that role as an opposition political party? Because those things have happened before we came in and it keeps happening.”

Tracing the crisis to leadership failure, he said:
“Like basic constitutional responsibility, Article 45 and 47, a tradition that we have maintained over the years.

“We find it difficult to speak the truth. What is Damagum still doing? And I ask you here now, as the national chairman of the party, go in by that tradition. So let’s leave Wike out of it. Wike has taken a job to run an errand for APC. So we already know where he belongs.

“But then what are we doing? What are we not doing as a group to rescue the party? So the point I’m trying to make here is that Article 47, 45 was very clear that when a vacancy occurs, a party NEC picks another person from that zone or area where the former occupants originated.

“And you have become acting chairman by virtue of 45. Call a NEC meeting to appoint an acting chairman. Is that difficult for somebody, who wants Nigeria to take him serious? And that inability to do that is what brought this round of crisis again. And let me say this, you people know what you are doing.”

While blaming Atiku for the problems facing the party, Abdullahi said that the present NWC inherited the problems in the party.

He emphasized that the NWC led by Damagum is not in the pocket of Wike, adding that Atiku should be blamed.

He said Atiku succeeded in foisting a worse government on the nation in the person of Muhammadu Buhari, adding, “we inherited the problems we are facing today. We are not in the pocket of Wike. Atiku Abubakar succeed in foisted the worse government in the person Buhari on us.”

Narrating how the former Vice President caused the problems in the party, Abdullahi said “Atiku came, leaving that party with all the effort many other people have done And then he surfaced again and got the ticket.

“We all rallied behind this same Atiku and we went to that election. There’s no way at the eve of that election five governors would be threatening this party and Atiku Abubakr would play that kind of levity and carelessness to say that they can go to hell.

“Aided by an Ayu, who was clearly working for something different from what we are, the problem that this present NWC is contended with Is a problem we inherited.

“We saw it clearly and some of us came all out and said to Atiku, you are losing it, as if we have not learned any lesson from the 2014 convention where five governors walked out of a convention.

“With five governors walking out of a convention and we say they can go to hell. Ayu did all that he needed to do to ensure that that was sabotaged as an insider.”

Other people who spoke at the conference were; Tanimu Turaki, Senator Sanusi Daggash, Osaro Onaiwu and others.