- Safiu Kehinde
Drama unfolded at the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) National Secretartiat in Abuja on Wednesday as suspected thugs invaded the secretariat disrupting the 79thBoard of Trustees (BoT) meeting.
Faced with a lingering leadership crisis the PDP’s recent removal of Samuel Anyanwu as its National Secretary had expanded the crisis as he continued to lay claim to the office despite being replaced by Sunday Udey-Okoye.
Anyawu’s removal was affirmed by a High Court ruling in Enugu on the 20th of December 2024, with the Court of Appeal also reaffirming the judgement on the 14th of January 2025.
The embattled former secretary, however, later secured a stay of execution order from the Court of Appeal, Abuja Division, in an appeal No. CA/E/24/2024 on the judgment earlier delivered by the Enugu division of the appellate court.
According to reports, the latest crisis started a few minutes after the opening ceremony of the meeting, when non-BoT members and journalists were asked to leave the hall for a closed-door session.
As the indoor session was about to commence, the party’s former National Youth Leader, Sunday Udey-Okoye, was dragged out of the hall by the political thugs, claiming that he was not a BoT member.
Thereafter, the thugs, suspected to be loyal to Anyanwu, mounted the hall, shouting that Udey-Okoye cannot enter the hall again.
The situation forced the supporters of Udey-Okoye to mobilise themselves to the entrance of the hall to confront one of Anyanwu’s aides who quickly ran inside the hall and closed the door.
Some of the political thugs were also seeing scaling the fence of the PDP national secretariat to support their respective leaders.
It took the intervention of the police and other security agents around to bring the situation under control, using pepper spray.
More security personnel from the Nigeria Police, Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps and the military were reportedly mobilised to the party secretariat to restore normalcy.
The meeting was chaired by the acting National Chairman of the party, Umar Damagum, and the BoT Chairman, Adolphus Wabara.
As at the time of filing this report, the closed-door meeting was ongoing, but without Udeh-Okoye in attendance.