The Acting National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Umar Damagum, has rued the continued stay of the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nyesom Wike, in the party.
Damagum spoke on Saturday during an interview with BBC Hausa Service, in the backdrop of the minister’s destabilising role in the main opposition party.
The party chair said he and a few others had, at a certain time in the past, advised the party’s reconciliation committee to expel Wike and some of his loyalists from the PDP.
He regretted, however, that the committee, chaired by a former Osun State Governor, Olagunsoye Oyinlola, rejected the advice.
Damagum recalled that the Oyinlola committee had about 40 petitions against Wike and other individuals that could warrant their expulsion from the PDP.
But the committee, he said, failed to take decisive actions on the petitions it received, many of which he said dwelt on the crisis rocking the party.
“The committee were handed over 40 petitions that needed attention but it only chose to act on that of the National Secretary. If the committee had acted on those petitions, maybe we would not be here today,” Damagum said.
According to him, there were enough reasons for the PDP to expel Wike and others from the party, but those who were in a position to do so at the time refused to act “due to reasons best known to them”.
“Before I knew him (Wike), many of those people had known him and were having relationships with him. They were enjoying his magnanimity. My only sin was that I came at a time when their relationship had soured.
This same man never hid his intent even before the 2023 general election,” the party chair recalled.
Recall that Wike, who was Rivers State Governor at the time, led four other PDP governors in the G-5 group.
They succeeded in frustrating the aspiration of the party’s then presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar.
They also succeeded in igniting a leadership crisis that has continued to plague the PDP, leading to mass defection of some of the party’s leading lights.
The four other governors in the G-5 were Seyi Makinde (Oyo), Okezie Ikpeazu (Abia), Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi (Enugu) and Samuel Ortom (Benue).
“We advised then that the five of them should be expelled from the party. But nothing was done until the election came and went. They succeeded in setting the party back with the things they did.
“Now that I am leading the party, they are putting pressure on me to expel him. My own is that I want peace in the party. By the time you keep expelling members rather than peacefully resolving issues, one day you will wake up and see that there are no more people in the party,” Damagum said.
