A pressure group within the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Coalition of PDP Professionals has charged the party’s Disciplinary Committee, led by High Chief Tom Ikimi, to make good impact towards facilitating the party’s rapid recovery from current crises by zeroing in statements and actions of highly placed party stakeholders.
The group urged the committee’s chairman, the party’s acting National Chairman, Ambassador Umar Illiya Damagum and party leaders in Kogi state, to consider sending an unequivocal message to highly-placed stakeholders by reviewing Senator Melaye’s recent utterances against PDP and rolling out appropriately severe sanctions.
A statement jointly signed by group’s president, Engineer Abdulraheem Ilyasu Garba and its publicity secretary, Mr. Gabriel Segun Adekoya, said they are working on a memorandum that will put the Senator Melaye’s name at the top of those to be recommended for the Disciplinary Committee’s sanction.
They added that those who persistently feel no sense of remorse need a constant reminder for attitude change towards good behaviour.
The group recalled how Melaye recently accused acting Damagum; PDP secretary, Sam Anyanwu; and national organising secretary, Umar Bature, of selling out the party.
They however alleged that Melaye’s comments about the party leaders was because of their resolve to adhere to PDP constitution and INEC’s guidelines over the congresses in Kogi State.
“As for the Kogi PDP congress which the three PDP officials stopped from being manipulated, thereby triggering bitterness as well as vicious social media attacks on Damagum, Anyanwu, and Bature; party chairmen in 19 out of 21 LGAs firmly backed the PDP NWC position on the ad hoc congress but Melaye who appears to have sensed defeat asked his few supporters to abandon the exercise while subsequent efforts to get the PDP NWC leaders to re-write what happened at the congress failed.
“Turning down overtures for manipulation and upholding the very credible results of a free, fair process led to vengeful attacks on the credibility of Damagum, Anyanwu, and Bature who upheld the results; therefore, we solicit the invocation of necessary structures within the party to discipline Melaye, review past cases of his group’s predilection for cooking up crises within PDP and vigorously apply all fitting and proper sanctions that will serve as timely notice to others who may have a history of nurturing similar intentions for mischief within PDP,” they said.