Confusion over Nwodo at the PDP convention
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- Category: Politics
- Published on Friday, 14 January 2011 07:58
- Written by Daily Trust
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The national convention of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) was yesterday thrown into confusion over the Enugu High Court order that ordered Dr. Okwesilieze Nwodo to stop parading himself as national chairman of the party.
Shortly after conferring with President Goodluck Jonathan and former president Olusegun Obasanjo, Nwodo returned to the podium to deliver his welcome address and declared the convention open throwing those present into a state of confusion on the state of the court order.
Information later filtered into the convention venue that the court order had been vacated earlier in the day thereby restoring Nwodo’s capacity to serve as chairman of the party.
Activities at the convention continued after Nwodo’s speech until after Mrs. Sarah Jibril and former vice president Atiku Abubakar addressed the delegates as presidential aspirants and then there was a long break as the convention was once again thrown into confusion.
After a while, Alhaji Bello Halliru again resurfaced on the podium saying Nwodo has officially communicated to him delegating his powers as chairman to the deputy. Halliru went ahead to read the chairman’s welcome address for a second time and reopened the convention which was already mid-way into the programme of event.
But national legal adviser of the PDP, Oluwole Oke later clarified the matter saying the party has been thrown into confusion on whether or not there was a court order restraining Nwodo as national chairman or the order had been vacated.
He said, “As a party that believes in rule of law, we don’t want to be found to have disobeyed court order. We have not received any order, we read from newspapers and gossips that there is a court order, we later heard when we were at this convention that the order has been vacated and again we heard that it has not been vacated.”
Oke therefore moved a motion asking delegates at the convention to ratify the delegation of powers of the national chairman to Halliru to act until further notice. The motion was seconded by Deputy Speaker Usman Bayero Nafada and voted ayes by majority of the delegates.
Nwodo is in a political tussle with stakeholders in the Enugu state PDP including Governor Sullivan Chime. The situation led to delay in conduct of the state congress.
