Just In : Group raises alarm over fresh plot to use PDP Senators to dislodge Akpabio’s calculations, crown Yari Senate president
A group in the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP has warned against alleged moves to deflate the All Progressives Congress, APC’s endorsement of Senator Godswill Akpabio by compelling its senators-elect to support the aspiration of Senator Abdulazziz Yari, warning it would paint the party as against Christians and the South, News Week Nigeria reports The PDP Nationalist Group (PNG), in a statement on Friday evening said it rejected very strongly the anti-South and anti-Christian posture of certain leaders in the PDP who were clearly driving an oppressive agenda against Southerners and Christians in the country.
The group in the statement issued by Dr Chibuike Nwosu, National Coordinator Barrister Osamudieme Omoruyi, Secretary noted that the office of Senate President had in the last 16 years been in the north with Muslims holding the seat for eight years in that period.
Noting that the PDP would be shooting itself in the foot by forging an alliance with a Moslem northern senator, the group said: “Our group notes with utter dismay and ire the activities of these unconscientious leaders within the PDP who continue to suppress and deny Southerners and Christians in the PDP of access to Party and other leadership positions in the country, thus making the PDP appear to be anti-South and anti-Christian.
“The anti-south disposition of these leaders painfully alienated our Party in the South and cost our Party the low hanging Presidential election and majority seat in the two chambers of the National Assembly
“It is indeed troubling that the PDP is apparently allowing an anti-south and anti-Christian agenda being pursued by certain northern leaders within the PDP, who are working with the APC, to railroad unsuspecting PDP Senators and Reps-elect to foist northern and non-Christian Senate President and Speaker of the House of Representatives on the National Assembly.
“The implication of such ethnic and religious politics will be the imposition of another northern non-Christian as the Senate President after sixteen years of northerners as Senate President, with non-Christian northerners holding the position in the last eight years, in a country where there are many qualified southerners to hold the position under the current dispensation.
“For clarity, in the last eight years, non-Christian northerners, Senator Bukola Saraki and Senator Ahmed Lawan presided as Senate President.
“The implication is that the PDP would be lending itself to creating an undemocratic and anti-Nigerians scenario of non-Christian President, Vice President, Senate President, Speaker of the House of Representatives and Chief Justice of the Federation.
“It is therefore vexatious, distressing ,provocative and disuniting if the PDP allows itself to be used to foist another northerner as Senate President and the Party must immediately retrace itself or risk going into political oblivion.
“We therefore caution the PDP to note that treading in the direction of allowing its Senators and Reps-elect to be railroaded to support a northern and non-Christian Senate President will not only diminish the PDP and end its way to political recovery as it might lead to mass exodus of well-meaning, nationalist minded members from our fold.
