The National Working Committee of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has upheld the inauguration of the ward and local government executives in the Cross River state.
POLITICS NIGERIA reports that an internal crisis started when the committee earlier rejected the ward and chapter executives put in place by Governor Benedict Ayade.
This reflected in a letter to the state Chairman of the party, Ntufam Edim Inok Edim sent on April 26, 2020 and signed by the National Organising Secretary, Austin Akobundu.
This paper learned that the copies of the letter titled; “Approval of New Ward and Local Government Area Executive Committee Members In Cross River State,” were sent to Ayade and National Chairman of PDP, Uche Secondus.
In the letter, Mr Akobundu forwarded an authentic list of the ward and local government executives for the 196 wards and 18 councils of the state as contained in the attached list of names of approved executive members.
He then directed Mr Edim to take necessary and appropriate steps to inaugurate the new executive officers in respect to the provisions of the party’s constitution as amended in 2017.
However, the state chairman inaugurated the ward executives on Thursday.
Meanwhile, a new list purported to be collated by Mr Akobundu surfaced online thereby causing controversies among members.
Reacting to that in a statement sent to POLITICS NIGERIA on Friday, the party said the attention of the NWC has been drawn to a list of Wards and LGA Executives for the state circulating on the social media, purportedly signed by Mr Akobundu, as the authentic list of approved new Ward and LGA executives for Cross River State.
The opposition party, however, debunked the authenticity of the viral list which is against the one earlier forwarded to the State Chapter which was also copied to other appropriate authorities on Monday, April 27, 2020.
“In clear and unambiguous terms, the PDP states that it had not sent any other list/document to Cross River state other than the initial list sent on Monday, April 27, 2020, with Ref Number: PDP/DOM/GF.V/Vol.2/20-387B.”
“For the avoidance of doubt, this document in circulation on social media is forged, as our document has more than ten distinguishing features, which are completely absent in the forged circulating version,” the statement read in parts.
The opposition party then listed three features that are missing in the forged documents.
It said that the footnotes on the Party’s Original Document have page numbers for control purposes as in (1 of 217) which the forged document does not.
“Original Party document has Reference Number PDP/DOM/GF.V/Vol.2/20-387B (B Stands For Bulk since all States get the same letter with same Reference Number), The forged document has PDP/DOM/GF.V/Vol.2/20-377B; (387B NOT 377B).
In the arrangements of Local Government Areas: the Original Party Document begins with OBUBRA LGA and OSOPANG II Ward, while the forged document begins with Abi LGA and ITIGIDI Ward, ” PDP added.
The Directorate of Organization and Mobilization of PDP, through Mr Akobundu, disowned the forged document and urged all party members, stakeholders and party faithful to discountenance it.
“We stand by the initial authentic list of the Ward and Local Government executives for all the 196 wards and 18 LGAs of Cross River State as contained in the attached lists of names of Ward and LGA Exco members approved by the National Working Committee (NWC) of our great Party, which was done after giving careful consideration to the reports of the Electoral Committee and the Appeal Panel,” he concluded.
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