PDP restoration team vow to fight on

By China Acheru

A group of aggrieved members of the Rivers State PDP who call themselves the Restoration Team say they will fight on despite intimidation from the state government.

Last week twelve members of the restoration team were arrested while meeting at a parallel PDP secretariat at Ohaeto street in D/Line and arraigned in court before being released on bail.

However, one of the twelve told CityTimes that they are fighting a just cause and as such cannot give up now.

“The governor and his current ruling class are afraid and we do not really know why. It is their fear that is making them act like a dictatorship but our mission is clear.

“We are not meeting because we want to be governor or chief of staff. We are meeting because there is a big crack in the Rivers PDP and we want to be noticed so there can be a peace meeting and PDP in Rivers State can be one again,” he said.

Members of the restoration team claim they are the founding fathers of the PDP in Rivers State yet they have been disenfranchised because of personal ambitions of the current ruling class.

According the them, they are not after power but they want the crack within the party to be sealed.

“There should be harmony in the party. We do not like the alienation. We built this party. We won the elections for this party yet we are no longer part of the party. That is our fight.”

However, they were accused of trying to foment trouble in the state by the Secretary to the State government, Magnus Abe.

Abe went further to accuse the immediate past governor of the state, Sir Celetine Omehia, former transport minister, Abiye Sekibo and former Deputy Speaker, house of representatives, Austin Opara of sponsoring the twelve men arrested to destabilize the state.

Addressing newsmen in Port Harcourt after their arrest, Abe said the government cannot allow the state to drift back into its previous state of insecurity and had to act fast.

“Some communities in Rivers State today are non-existent because of a series of adverse security situations we had in the state,” Abe said.

According to him, “those arrested and prosecuted have little electoral value.”

But one of the twelve told CityTimes that it is a shame they are called all sorts of names just so the government can justify their actions.

“We know what Port Harcourt was like before now and we enjoy the peace in the state but have we forgotten that the Nigerian constitution allows for freedom of association? We have been denied of our rights to meet.

“But we must state clear why we were meeting so the records are straight,” he said.

“It is not news that the party is divided and a lot of true stakeholders like two former governors, a former minister, a former presiding officer of the Federation, commissioners and legislators have been shut out from the scheme of things.

“Then in the last party registration exercise, we were all denied our rights to register as party members so we had to hold a meeting to strategise on how to go ahead with the newly introduced e-registration before we were arrested and charged to court.

“We are not going to give up. We are ready to be arrested over and over again but the national secretariat must look into the matter of what goes on in what is left of the Rivers State PDP.”

These allegations made by the reform group were however debunked by the chairman of the Rivers State PDP, Uche Sekondus.

Speaking to the Guardian last week, Sekondus said, “I believe that our politics has reached the stage where people need to stop telling lies to the public.

“Their petition is based on falsehood and an attempt to undermine me and the state party executive,” Sekondus said.

He said the primaries for the ward, council and state congresses were not held in hotel rooms as alleged.

The political situation in Rivers State is already very tense and uncertain ahead of the party and national elections which come up between now and the first quarter of 2011.

The members of the PDP restoration team arrested were two former commissioners in the state, Lolo Ibieneye and Mrs Chidi Lali Green, Prince Ohochukwu, a former state chairman of PDP for eight years; Sokuru Jaja; Dominic Saatah; Agiobu Fubara; and Francis Ebenezer.

There were also Grant Orugbani and Chidi Nwankwo Nancy.

Others were Achinike Wonodi, Ejor Ngowah Ejor and Nwuke Anucha all former council chairmen.