Party Congresses: 10 of 14 Borno PDP SWC reject suspension of Imam, Gaddama

– says the only ward can decide their fate

Members of the Borno state working committee of the People Democratic Party (PDP) have today rejected the purported suspension of the party’s governorship candidate, Mohammed Imam, by a section of the state executives.

On Wednesday a faction of the party led by the current state chairman and three other members of the SWC held a press conference where they summarily announced the suspension of the former PDP flag bearer alongside the immediate chairman of the party, Zannah Gaddama.

The group said the offence of the duo was alleged hijacking of party nomination forms for the coming congresses expected to kick off on Saturday, September, 25.

Recalled that a supreme court judgment had in March sacked Mr Gaddama as the chairman of the party in the September 2017 party congresses, and reinstated the former chairman Usman Baderi as the duly elected chairman.

During the press conference, the new party chairman and his three SWC members who also benefited from the apex court ruling insisted that the former chairman and the party’s flagbearer had continued to undermine their mandate.

“Since our inauguration, we have received a series of complaints from wards and local governments on activities of those people who best, in their interest, are trying to destroy the party just as what they did in 2017 up to 2019 general elections,” Mr Baderi, who was represented at the press conference said.

For that reason, the officials said they had to ratify a purported suspension of Mr Imam and Gaddam by the executives of their Ward, Shehuri-North.

The 10 SWC members led by Bello Umar, an organizing secretary of the PDP in Borno state insisted that even if there was any move to suspend Messrs Imam and Gaddama, it should be from the Ward level.

He said; “only the working committee made up of 14 officials can suspend anybody from the party. And now, the party chairman only sat with three members of the party to decide on suspending the two top leaders of the party who we respected so much”.

“We have the chairman and secretary of our party at the Shehuri Northward here with us and they are the ones that have the powers to decide the faith of any party member or official concerning membership, and surprisingly they are not even aware of what happened.

Mr Bello disclosed that the reinstated party chairman, Baderi has been suspended from parading himself as chairman of the party following his alleged failure to work with all members.

“The state has 14 state working committee members, which include Baderi himself and three others. We also have 39 executive committee members which we have their full list with us. But Baderi decided to work with only three people with whom he sat and concoct lies about the suspension of our leader and former governorship candidate as well as our former party chairman.

“Out of the 39 state executive members, only four are in the Baderi group; the remaining 35 are with us here and out of the 14 members of the working committee only four are with Baderi and the remaining 10 are here with us. So how can they (minority) sit to decide on any matter without the consent of the majority?

“We the 10 officials out of the 14 SWC members and the entire 35 SEC members out of the 39 have unanimously and unequivocally rejected the purported and desperate attempts to suspend our leader Mohammed Imam and our former state chairman in whom we still trust for quality leadership.

Also reacting to his suspension, Mr Gaddama told our reporter on the phone that “after the supreme had ruled and void my election, I accepted the verdict and handed over to Mr Baderi; but he had no further rights even as the party chairman to concoct any plot to deny us membership of the party, only the ward executives can decide that. And at the last time, I checked today, the ward is fully behind us.”

On his part, Mr Imam said his purported suspension was a joke taken too far because “even if my ward suspended me, which they have not, it still requires a series of processes to validate that I am a member of the National Executive Commission (NEC). As far as we are concerned we are mobilizing our people to come out for the congresses starting from next Saturday, Insha Allah.”