Stakeholders of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), under the aegis of PDP Frontliners, have berated the party’s former Kogi State governorship candidate, Dino Melaye for allegedly bringing the party into disrepute with unjustifiable verbal attacks on its leadership.
They described Melaye's assertions that the party under Amb. Umar Damagum's leadership has become "commercialised and privatised", as discourteous.
This was contained in a statement· signed by Alhaji Hussein Mohammed (President), Mr. Moses Abidemi (Secretary) and Mr. Dan Okafor (Publicity Secretary), in Abuja.
In response to Melaye's tirade, the PDP Frontliners alleged that ‘vultures of different hues’ within and outside the party are now circling around, hoping to see the death of a sick PDP and make quick benefits.
This, they wowed to resist as loyal party members. They pledged to join forces with other progressive members to fight in order to ensure that such ugly expectations and the people behind them do not succeed.
The statement read in part, “These are strange times for the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), its Kogi state governorship candidate in the last elections who got huge resources but woefully failed to do any serious political mobilization; now has the guts to come out and say that the party is being destroyed by the exact officials who facilitated his governorship ticket and prevailed on others to step down.
"Many who benefitted generously from PDP are now among the party’s biggest headaches, Dino Melaye got PDP ticket to the House of Representatives and even, after returning from the APC, PDP gave him a Senatorial ticket after prevailing on other qualified aspirants to step down but you can all see the baseless and groundless insult he is using to pay back."
The group said it was gratuitous insult to the people of Kogi state and the PDP for Senator Melaye to overlook his own long-known shortcomings and now unfairly accuse the party’s acting National Chairman, Umar Iliya Damagum, National Secretary, Senator Samuel Anyanwu, and National Organising Secretary, Umar Bature, of being behind the bad fortunes of the party.
The group further said, “For last year’s Kogi state governorship elections, Dino Melaye got huge contributions, including vehicles from PDP stakeholders but never dispensed campaign funds to party structures or even, PDP polling agents across Kogi state; it has never been so bad since 1999, but Dino Melaye's failure earned PDP a meagre 46,000 votes across the entire state and the governorship candidate himself did not even bother to vote!
“Audaciously, this Melaye took to X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter and wrote: “End of the road for PDP as Damagun, Bature, and Anyanwu irredeemably destroyed the party. We will talk about the commercialisation and privatisation of PDP. PDP is now once upon a time.
“Ironically, this fellow now talking about how our party is dying was implicated in efforts to scuttle the PDP ward congress in Kogi state, in an abortive effort to commercialize and ‘deliver’ to a paymaster for a desperate outing in 2027; members suspect an on-going agenda to even scam Kogi state PDP once again.
“The misplaced anger against Damagum and the PDP leadership began when they agreed to the August 9 call of our group and that of eighteen out of the twenty-one PDP chairmen in various local government areas of Kogi state to stop the state’s Caretaker Committee from replacing the results of a free, fair and orderly ad-hoc delegates’ conference of Saturday, 27th July, 2024 with a manipulated process hurriedly slated for Saturday, August 10 but cancelled by the national leadership.
“Obviously, someone is looking for how to scam us and commercialize PDP support base in Kogi state; or, is it not a strange irony that the same minority clique that was behind the failed attempt to commercialize and privatize Kogi state PDP ahead of 2027 primaries now audaciously throws such accusation against those who stopped the manipulation so decisively”.
The party stakeholders expressed optimism that with appropriate steps being taken, the PDP will rise above its crisis and re-emerge as the party of choice not only in Kogi State but also across Nigeria.
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