In cross River State, thousands of people are protesting against the plans by the PDP at
the national to give aspirants especially National Assembly members
automatic ticket.
Mean while two supporters were immediately rushed to the hospital for treatment after being shot at the venue of
the protest (PDP Secretariat) following a disagreement among party
members.
The placard carrying protesters/members who stormed the Party
Secretariat at 42a Muritala Mohammed Highway in Calabar decried the
planned move by the party at the national to impose candidate on them.
Newsmen observed from various inscriptions on the placard like
“reverse automatic ticket”, ”PDP going going Gone” ,RIP PDP, Let us go
to the field” among others decried the fact that many of the aspirants
who have been purportedly given automatic ticket have already served
more than one term .
They called on the National Chairman, Mr. Uche Secondus to as a
matter of urgency look into the matter by reversing the automatic ticket
and calling other aggrieved party members to a round table
before it is too late.
Ntufam Ekpo
Okon, former PDP chairman in the state and Senatorial aspirant said
they will not blink and allow this impunity to go unchallenged.
“We will not blink and allow this to go on unchallenged. We are conversant with democratic values and the content of the constitution of our party. We have read the guidelines for these primaries, the process of nomination party primaries and we did not just jump into this. We have been members who have paid our dues." He said.
He continue to argue that - "we paid for our nomination forms and
paid all fees required only for us to be called and told that the NWC of
our party has taken a position to direct all incumbent members of the
National Assembly should be returned unopposed. That means even if we go
through the congresses, we do not stand any chance because they would
send names that they have decided to send."
“They pretended as if we were going to have congress to elect ad hoc
delegates. And meanwhile did not do any congresses anywhere in the 196
wards of Cross River and wrote lists of delegates to support that
charade."
“The truth of the matter is that it is unfortunate because it means
that PDP, as a party, has learnt nothing. All that befell PDP in 2015,
one would have expected that PDP would have come out of this situation
wiser."
But if this is what PDP has chosen to do, it is not acceptable and it
is not going to go down well with us and we will not accept it. We are
members of the party and insist that let there be level playing field.
We are ready to contest on a level playing field.
“Look at APC. They are doing direct primaries. If I remember after
the 2015 windfall that finished us, the Ekweremadu committee recommend a
direct primary.
We jettisoned all that. Today even the indirect
primaries we cannot open our hearts and do the right thing. If this was
the case, why didn’t you make the pronouncement and stop selling forms.
You sold forms, collected money from us and now turn round to
shortchange us. It is unacceptable.
We want the party to reverse itself on this dangerous process and do
the right thing. If they don’t, we will consult with our people and do
the needful. I am running in an election. It is my aspiration but it is
an aspiration that goes beyond me.
The same impunity that made us loose
elections in 2015 has fully come back to the party even in a higher
proportion and complicated dimension. We failed because of this kind of
attitude in 2015 and if we don’t address it now we are likely to fail
again,” he lamented .
“This is dangerous, as the party for the first time in the fourth
republic, is faced with a formidable opposition, which controls the
power at the centre. We believe that this is risky gamble. “Recall that
this imposition of candidate, lack of open space and impunity railroad
our party into the implosion from which she is yet to recover. It would
appear that our party has not veered away from
that ignoble course and allow popular political reasoning of free and fair democratic practices prevail,’’ they stated.
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