The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has been ordered by a High Court in Oyo State to proceed with its national convention on 15 November in Ibadan, following a legal directive that has intensified tensions within the opposition party.
Justice A. L. Akintola issued the order on Monday in response to an ex parte motion filed by Folahan Malomo Adelabi, compelling the PDP and its acting National Chairman, Ambassador Umar Damagum, to go ahead with the convention as earlier scheduled.
The ruling comes amid growing divisions within the party and renewed criticism of Damagum’s leadership from the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nyesom Wike.
Speaking on Politics Today, a television programme monitored in Abuja on Monday night, Wike accused Damagum of lacking the integrity to lead the party, describing him as a “tax collector” driven by financial interests rather than party loyalty.
“Damagum does not even know who his lawyer was when we went to court,” Wike said. “That was how we were able to stabilise and keep Damagum.”
The former Rivers State governor claimed he had intervened to keep the PDP leadership functional during its internal legal disputes but argued that Damagum had failed to show leadership.
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👉 JOIN GISTSMATE WHATSAPP CHANNEL“But you see, as a tax collector, he will always be,” Wike added. “He doesn’t need to work with FIRS; he is a company tax collector. There are people who think money is everything in life. They can never be steadfast.”
Wike challenged Damagum to seek legal redress if he considered the remarks defamatory. “Let Damagum challenge me. Let him go to court and sue me and say, ‘This was what the minister said about me.’ He knows he cannot,” he said.
The minister also claimed that former Vice President Atiku Abubakar’s recent defection from the PDP was inevitable, arguing that Atiku and his allies had repeatedly destabilised the party.
“Atiku has no choice but to go,” Wike said. “Someone who wants to use the PDP, knowing that I am there, cannot get that platform. These are people who destroyed the party. Remember how many times he left and came back.”
Responding to critics who accused him of working secretly with the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Wike said those making such claims had now defected to the same party they accused him of supporting.
“The man you claimed is working for APC to kill PDP is still in the PDP, and you people have run away to join the party you said I am working for,” he said.
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