Why We Took Coffins To PDP Secretariat Yesterday, December 3, Anti-Wike Protesters Explain

Peoples Democrat­ic Party (PDP) as­pirants, who were disqualified from participating in last week­end state assemblies pri­maries yesterday stormed the party’s national secretariat in Abuja with coffin in protest. The aspirants, who came with party thugs, carrying emp­ty coffins, blocked the entrance to Wadata Plaza, Sunnewsonline reports

National Woman Leader, Kema Chikwe and National Vice Chairman, South-South of the party, Cairo Ojougboh, were turned back by the aspi­rants.

Some of them, who spoke with newsmen accused the PDP National Working Com­mittee and the state chapter of the party of conniving with former Minister of State for Education and governorship aspirant, Nyesom Wike of frus­trating their aspirations.

A state Assembly aspirant, Davis Saloka, from Eleme constituency, said they were at the PDP secretariat to kick against the “open robbery per­petrated against them by the party.”

Saloka told newsmen that no fewer than 107 members of the party paid to obtain the expression of interest and nomination forms, but noted that only 32, whom he claimed were loyalists of Nyesom, were given what he called “dubious clearance,” while the rest of them were disqualified.

“We all bought forms to participate in the PDP primary election but what we saw was out of the ordinary.

“We attended the screening exercise but we did not know our fate until Friday night when we saw a list pasted, in­dicating that only 32 persons were cleared to participate in the election.

“We discovered that those nominated from Wike’s camp were given clearance which gave them automatic ticket while the rest of us were screened out.

“The most annoying thing was that we were not told the reason we were disqualified, and it is more curious to note that all we saw was a list that was neither signed nor was on a PDP letter head, but just contained the names of Wike’s boys as the only ones cleared to participate in the party pri­mary.

“On Saturday, they just wrote the names of these peo­ple and said they were the win­ners of the PDP party primary where elections were not held.

“It is injustice, we won’t ac­cept it,” he said.

Another aspirant, Jude Nwi­bie, from Kana Constituency 2 spoke in similar vein and sub­mitted that he was disqualified without any cogent reason.

He further disclosed that he went through the rigour of the screening exercise like his col­leagues in accordance with the party’s guideline for the elec­tion, but was surprised that the result of the screening exercise was not made public.

He, however, said he was stupefied to see a list of 32 per­sons pasted a night before the party primary as the cleared aspirants for the race.

“A huge injustice was vis­ited on us by the party just to please Wike an Ikwere man who wants to succeed another Ikwere man.

“Money was collected from us for nomination form but we were prevented from partici­pating in any party primary,” he said.

In a joint petition signed by 31 of the aggrieved aspirants under the aegis of Coalition of Rivers State PDP House of As­sembly and National Assem­bly aspirants, they demanded the dissolution of the Rivers State chapter of the party, led by Felix Obuah and the re­moval of Deputy National Chairman of the ruling party, Uche Secondus.