Elected delegates and coalition of local government executive council members of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in Kogi State have vowed to resist the planned cancellation of their recent election by the National Working Committee (NWC).
The state’s PDP delegates are the ones that would ultimately elect the party’s gubernatorial candidate for the state governorship polls slated for November 21st this year.
They accused the party’s NWC members of plotting to select their preferred candidates as the delegates who will elect the governorship candidate of the party for the November polls.
The concerned party delegates and local government executive, led by the spokesman, Ibrahim Abdullahi, told journalists yesterday that the decision of the NWC to frustrate a transparent election of the new state executive of the party would amount to a breach of constitution.
“The National Working Committee as empowered by the constitution wrote a letter to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), notifying them of the date for the election of ad-hoc delegates and state executive.
“The said ad-hoc delegates election was conducted as planned on Saturday, June 27, 2015 at the various wards across the state by the electoral committee constituted by the NWC of the party.
“The election, which was widely attended, was conducted without any record of violence, malpractice or rigging. The committee that supervised the election also collated all the results and adjudged the process free, fair and transparent.
“But to our utmost dismay, the NWC, through the national publicity secretary, Chief Olisa Metuh, announced the unconstitutional and undemocratic cancellation of the election without any substantive reason for such action,” he said.
They also regretted that a new committee was set up to conduct a fresh congress headed by the same Olisa Metuh after they had sent delegations to the national secretariat, demanding to know the reason behind the cancellation and no reason or whatsoever was given.
