60 Reps demand immediate resignation of PDP chairman over caretaker committees list

60 members of the House of Representatives elected on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) on Monday demanded the resignation of the party’s Acting National Chairman, Iliya Damagun, over the alleged doctored list of party’s caretaker committees in Rivers and 10 other states.

The members who came together under the aegis of the opposition lawmaker’s coalition threatened to quit the party claiming the list was filled with loyalists of the All Progressive Congress (APC).

In a communiqué issued at a media briefing in Abuja and read by the lawmaker representing Ideato Federal Constituency, Ikenga Imo Ugochinyere, they accused Damagum of planning to hand over the PDP to APC in Rivers State.

The lawmakers alleged that the list of caretaker committee members in Rivers state was doctored in favour of the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nyesom Wike, and the members of the Rivers House of Assembly who have defected from PDP to APC.

It read: “The immediate resignation of Umar Iliya Damagun as Ag. National Chairman of PDP for anti-party activities and allow North Central to produce the acting chairman as clearly stated in the PDP constitution or watch us reconsider our membership of the party in the months ahead if the right thing is not done.

“Or removal of Umar Iliya Damagun by the NEC of the Party with further sanctions against him for his anti-party activities.

READ ALSO: PDP insists INEC must declare 27 Rivers lawmakers’ seats vacant

“That the NEC of the Party should ensure that the list of party Caretaker Committees in Rivers State and all other 10 states tampered by Damagun and his APC Friends are reversed and announced as originally agreed, that is by extension of the tenures of the outgoing leadership.

The move to use serving APC Members in Rivers State and 10 other states to lead our party caretaker at the state, LGA, and ward levels is the highest act of political provocation and impunity that we are going to fight with everything in us. PDP can’t be handed over to the APC. APC officers can’t emerge our party officials in rivers or any of the 10 states with the alleged imposition of APC interest.

“Let the world know that why they are hell-bent on imposing APC officials as our party caretaker members is to fulfill a planned bigger plot which will see so-called PDP members who in reality are APC members decamping in mass into APC as PDP officials which will see the imposed executives of our party in over 11 states including Rivers joining APC on their set date just to embarrass our party.

“Hence our resistance that we will fight with everything in us and to any length to resist that plan. God save the PDP. Just imagine imposing card-carrying members of APC in the entire PDP structures in Rivers and 10 other states, God how did we get here.”

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