PDP workers carpet Metuh, accuse spokesman of anti-party activities

The Peoples Democratic Party Staff Welfare Association has described as an absolute “bunkum, clumsy and a blundering blackmail”, an allegation by the National Publicity Secretary of the PDP, Olisa Metuh, that the staff were being sponsored by the All Progressives Congress.

 

The workers said such an accusation from a “mortally crippled arsenal of witch-hunt is incapable of breaking the resolve of the staff to expose the thieving band in the NWC(National Working Committee) and restore the core vision of the party.”

A statement in Abuja on Saturday by the Chairman of the association, Ngozi Nze, and Secretary, Dan Ochu-Baiye, described the allegation as a “wide window into the impressionable ominous signpost into the shallow manner the publicity of the PDP” had been run.

“We are not surprised that the allegation will become the most fashionable means of covering tracks,” the statement said.

The workers stated this in reacting to a statement by Metuh, who said the workers were being used by the APC against the PDP.

The National Secretary of the PDP, Prof. Wale Oladipo, had written to the workers, intimating them of the decision of the party to cut down the staff strength at the national secretariat by 50 per cent while the retained staff should be ready for a 50 per cent pay cut.

The angry workers are asking the NWC members to account for the over N12bn, which they alleged were squandered by the committee in nine months.

Responding to Metuh, the workers in the statement said the way the party was being run in the media was devoid of any professionalism, adding that it was a source of embarrassment to party members.

They said, “We therefore place  on record that the majority of the establishment staff of the PDP are not just unrepentant members of the party, who have spent over 16 years in service; who have assimilated the PDP ethos as a way of political life but are also the repository of the party’s institutional memory whose spirit can hardly succumb to the ephemerality of power loss.”

The workers wondered who should be accused of playing anti-party roles in the once-upon ruling party between them “who are genuinely resisting the morally repugnant and obsessively corrupt NWC so that the PDP will survive or the likes of Metuh, who has a track record of anti-party given his open endorsement of APGA candidate in 2013 Anambra governorship election; the subsequent denigration of PDP candidate and his chances on live television programme less than 24hours after the election, even as the result was being awaited?”

They recalled that in the January 2010 Anambra governorship election, Metuh, as National Vice Chairman, South East abandoned Prof.  Chukwuma Soludo, the PDP candidate, while openly galvanising support for Hope Democratic Party candidate, who they described as his friend and benefactor.

The statement added, “The PDP did not only woefully lose in Otolo Nnewi Ward 1 of the Party’s zonal Vice Chairman but came a distant third in his polling booth!  What a faithful party officer!

“Again, we have incontrovertible evidence that the man, who is PDP Publicity Secretary, worked assiduously against the presidential candidate of the PDP, former President Goodluck Jonathan, in the last election in order to requite the ex-President for rejecting him as Director of Publicity of the Presidential Campaign, which was given to Chief Femi Fani-Kayode.

They alleged that this followed the squandering of a huge sum “approved for the office of PDP Publicity Secretary by President Jonathan.”

The statement added that last week’s controversial congress in Anambra State was another signpost to the “destructive trajectory which the likes of  Metuh is driving the PDP to”.

It added, “The chairman of the congress, Ike Abonyi, is at present in Metuh’s employ as his media adviser.

“Another member of the committee, Collet Odenigbo, is Metuh’s friend and adjutant on special assignments while the man returned as State Organising Secretary, Mr. Sam Ben, is Metuh’s personal assistant.

“The process was so personalised to the chagrin of party members, especially leaders. As we write, the party is still waiting for the result of the congresses a week after they were held, pending when Metuh is done with his conclave of distortion and extortion.”