Governor
Ayodele Fayose was yesterday locked inside the old Presidential Lodge of Rivers
State Government House by what he claimed was an Armoured Personnel Carrier,
APC.
Following
the lifting of the siege, the governor fumed at the APC administration,
accusing it of being intolerant and willing to use state power to crush the
opposition.
Indications
of something untoward first emerged sometime around 2:30 a.m. yesterday, when
heavily armed policemen, in conjunction with plain clothed security men,
suspected to be operatives of the Department of State Services, DSS, and
Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps, NSCDC, fenced off the venue of the
convention.
Explaining
the police action, the Police Commissioner, Mr Francis Odesanya, told newsmen
that he merely complied with a court order to provide security around the
venue, stressing that his men did not seal up the place.
“We
did not seal up the place, we are only providing security,” he said. Asked
whether he was obeying the Abuja or the Port Harcourt court ruling, the
commissioner rebuffed the questions as he quipped, “it is not my duty to
interpret court order,” and directed further enquiries on the development to
Force Headquarters.
Police
patrol vehicles were used to block all roads leading to the stadium. Motorists
were politely told to turn away from all roads leading to the stadium.
With
the situation still in a flux, the National Executive Committee, NEC, arising
from the past congresses conducted, was inaugurated in an emergency meeting
inside the premises of Government House, Port-Harcourt.
While
inside the Government House, several options before the party were considered.
Among the options were that the Makarfi committee should be dissolved and the
running of the party handed over to the Board of Trustees, BoT or the
relocation to another venue to hold the national convention and conduct the
elections.
A
third option was to hold a mini convention without election inside an
alternative venue. In the end, the party apparently in a bid not to turn the
BoT into a party in the several conflicts, opted the third option partly to
avoid the possibility of the police coming to break up the convention.
The
convention inside the premises of the PDP state secretariat was opened by the
national chairman, Makarfi, who poured out unusually hard words on the federal
government, with the assertion that democracy in the country was under threat.
“Democracy
is under threat and we should be careful. We have enough problems in this
country and we should be careful,” he said, asserting that the party had
resolved to go ahead with the convention.
The
chairman of the Convention Planning Committee, Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers
State, subsequently invited dignitaries present among whom were the chairman of
the BoT, Senator Walid Jibrin, and the Deputy President of the Senate, Senator
Ike Ekweremadu, to give their remarks.
Jibrin
in his remarks, affirmed that the PDP would outlive all the machinations set
against it by its adversaries as he said the party resolved to hold the
convention in adherence to the wishes of party members.
Senator
Ekweremadu, the party’s highest elected public officials in his remarks, said
time was coming when Nigerians would demand that the PDP be given the reins of
power again. He encouraged party members to keep hope alive, saying “we are
going to survive this tyranny as we have survived it before.”
Ekweremadu
subsequently moved a four part motion that led to the resolutions that were
adopted by the convention, to wit: Postponement of election of officers to
various national offices of the party; extension of the tenure of the National
Caretaker Committee till another National Convention which is to be convened
within the next 12 months and approval of the expansion of membership of the
National Caretaker Committee from 7 to 13 members; Also include in the motion
was the resolution that at the Repeat National Convention, all members of the
National Caretaker Committee shall not contest or aspire for any national
office.
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Politics