However, with less than two years to the 2023 elections, stakeholders of the party are deeply concerned over the depletion in the PDP ranks, just as they averred that the popularity and influence of Secondus have waned due to his leadership style. Speaking to our correspondent, a former National Working Committee member of the party, said the PDP must be decisive and revamp the party’s leadership before the proposed national convention in December. “We are losing our best hands by the day and many more are frustrated. Look at how we lost three governors in two years.
Most of our state chapters are in shambles. How can we compete in 2023 when our structures are in tatters? We must act now. This Secondus leadership has lost steam and should be replaced as soon possible,” he said. Recently, a former Commissioner in Edo State, Kassim Afegbua, claimed that the party is in a sorry situation, calling for the removal of the Secondus-led administration. In a statement titled, “Sack Uche Secondus Now,” he said when he raised the alarm two months ago about the gradual decimation of the party, many thought he was raising dust over nothing.
He said: “The events of the last one month and the continuing defection of major PDP stakeholders to the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) is further testimony to the leadership tactlessness and spinelessness of the Secondus-led NWC of the party.
“It should be of urgent concern to all stakeholders and organs of the party, including the Governors’ Forum, to arrest this obvious drift which has left our dear party naked before Nigerians, home and abroad. “There is a more compelling need to urgently call for a stakeholders meeting to mitigate, amongst other things, this obvious decimation of the PDP by a leadership that is utterly bereft of ideas, confused, intellectually hollow, phlegmatic and absentminded in the affairs of the nation and the party.” Likewise, a PDP youth group, under the aegis of South-South Youth Vanguard has also called for Secondus to be sacked.
The group in a statement by its national chairman, James Efe Akpofure, said the national chairman should be sacked immediately. The group said the call has become imperative following the frequent defection in the party and called on the party leaders to stop the drift of defections by addressing the negative situation in the party. The youth charged PDP stakeholders not to wait for the expiration of the Secondus-led NWC before it is shown the exit door because the party would be empty before he leaves office by December.
But speaking to New Telegraph, the National Publicity Secretary of the PDP, Mr. Kola Ologbondiyan, said Secondu is not under any pressure and he is working to reposition the party ahead of the 2023 general election. “The governor did not officially inform us that he was leaving.
There is nobody that left the party that formally informed us that they were leaving. We also made efforts to make sure that the governors did not leave. In the case of this Zamfara State governor, his first complaint that we are aware of was when he went to the president to show him the impact of mining activities in his state and that our governors from the South-South did not include his state among those that should be allowed to control mineral resources in their states. “He was angry with that and the party and the governors appealed to him.
The second thing he complained about was when there was a fire incident in Sokoto State and one of our governors supported the people of Sokoto with a particular amount. He complained that a fire incident also happened in his state and nobody supported him with funds. Although the opponent also went there to support, our governors later supported him with a particular amount. Just funny complaints, and at every stage, we always intervened but when a politician says he wants to go, he has already gone before saying it,” he said.
