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PDP NWC faults list of ward, chapter excos released by Cross River

By Anietie Akpan, Calabar
02 May 2020   |   4:11 am
As the face off between the National Assembly members, stakeholders of the Peoples Democratic Party(PDP) from Cross Rive state and the State governor, Senator Ben Ayade...

As the face off between the National Assembly members, stakeholders of the Peoples Democratic Party(PDP) from Cross Rive state and the State governor, Senator Ben Ayade, and the State PDP executives deepens, the National Working Committee (NWC) of the PDP has declared as fake the second list of Wards and Local Council executive currently circulating in the state.

The NWC of the party had in a letter signed by the National Organising Secretary, Col Austin Akobundu (rtd), dated April 26, 2020, issued a list of ward and chapter executives for the state and directed the State Chairman Ntufam Edim Inok Edim to swear them in on April 30. But that was not done as the he said they totally disregard the names making the rounds as “we don’t know any of them, never came to our party and did not pay any dues to us and we call on the National Secretariat of our party to investigate the purported list and bring the people to book.”

The ward and chapter executives based on the April 26 letter from the NWC were sworn-in by a Notary Public, Okamiso Ojong, Esq, principal partner of Okimaai Ojong and Co, in accordance with the provisions of Section 65 of the PDP Constitution as amended in 2017 and they will be in office for a tenure of four years.

But yesterday the Special Adviser to the Governor on Media and Publicity, Mr. Christian Ita made a second list of ward and chapter executives available to newsmen and the document was said to have emanated from the NWC, dated April 27 and signed by the same National Organising Secretary of the party.

However, Akobundu issued a disclaimer dated May 1, 2020 and made available to some newsmen in Calabar saying “the attention of the NWC of our great party, the PDP has been drawn to a list/document of Wards and LGA Executives for Cross River State circulating on the social media, purportedly signed by the National Organizing Secretary, Col. Austin Akobundu (rtd), as the authentic list of approved new Ward and LGA executives for Cross River State as against the one earlier forwarded to the State Chapter which was also copied to other appropriate authorities dated Sunday April 26, 2020.

“In clear and unambiguous terms, the PDP states that it had not sent any other list/document to Cross River state other than the initial list sent on Monday April 27, 2020, with Ref Number: PDP/DOM/GF.V/Vol.2/20-387B. For the avoidance of doubt, this document (dated April 27, 2020) in circulation on the social media is forged, as our document has more than ten distinguishing features, which are completely absent in the forged circulating version”.

The party sited three of these features as an example, saying, “the other security features will not be disclosed for forensic purposes as this despicable act will be properly investigated and the perpetrators reprimanded.
“While we do not want to join issues with the authors of this forged document, the Directorate of Organization and Mobilization of the Peoples Democratic Party wishes to disown this forged document in its entirety and urge all our party members, stakeholders and party faithful to discountenance it.

“We stand by the initial authentic list of the Ward and Local Government executives for all the 196 wards and 18 LGAs of Cross River State as contained in the attached lists of names of Ward and LGA Exco members approved by the National Working Committee (NWC) of our great Party, which was done after giving careful consideration to the reports of the Electoral Committee and the Appeal Panel”.

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