Mass resignation from PDP long overdue – Ex-Imo Assembly speaker

Duruji

Former Speaker, Imo State House of Assembly and ex-member of the state PDP Elders’ Council, Lawman Duruji, shares his thoughts with IMOLEAYO OYEDEYI on why he and other chieftains resigned from the party recently

You and some members of the Peoples Democratic Party in Imo State recently resigned from the party. What informed your action?

Well, I indeed tendered my resignation recently from the Peoples Democratic Party, which several other people and I grew into an institution. But the fact remains that my resignation was due to the recent developments and happenings within the party, which contradicted my beliefs and principles as a democrat. So, I needed to resign because I could not continue aligning myself with undemocratic elements, especially those at the national level and the leadership of the state caucus of the party.

What were the undemocratic issues that forced you to resign?

Some unaddressed intra-party crises eventually culminated in the suspension of the Imo State PDP chairman and some party stakeholders. Then, there is the obvious ineptitude of the party’s national secretary, who has lorded himself over other party structures at the state and local government levels. Every politics is local; so, every politician should be grassroots-based.

The PDP national secretary was given the structure and the party ticket to run at the last governorship election, but at the end of the day, he was not even able to deliver his local government to the party. Afterwards, we saw a witch-hunt of party members who remained loyal to the party and even supported him during the last election.

Before then, the party’s national caucus had met and agreed that he should resign to pave the way for the emergence of another national secretary from the region for the party since he was vying for the state governorship position. The zonal caucus of the party and Enugu State Governor also met in Enugu. I was at the meeting, and we all agreed to forward the name of the party’s former national youth leader, Sunday Ude-Okoye, as a replacement.

But at the end of the day, the national leadership of the party chose to obey the court order which they felt was in alignment with their interests. For me, I couldn’t continue staying in a party that is supposed to play the role of an effective opposition defending our democracy but failed to do so.

We noticed that the whole move of the party was averse to our beliefs. On the contrary, the party was playing out the vision of the ruling All Progressives Congress, and not the role of an opposition party. So, these are some of the things that caused my resignation from the party.

You mentioned the suspension of the state chairman of the party. Is this part of your reasons for resigning?

My resignation is a personal thing and it has nothing to do with the suspension of the state chairman of the party. But it has everything to do with the suspension of democratic principles and beliefs that the party was built on.

But some people have said the mass resignation from the state has something to do with the interest of the state’s former deputy speaker, Emeka Ihedioha, who has also left the party. Is this true and was he also unfairly treated by the party’s national leadership?

I don’t think our resignation is based on his interest. Granted, Emeka (Ihedioha) is my leader, but it is not all about his interest. It is rather about the interest of the people who are interested in recovering the state, which I am part of. If it is about people who have not been treated fairly by the party, I think I was the first to experience that even before Ihedioha.

This is because the PDP was instrumental to my removal from office in an election I won. But that is by the way, and I don’t want to talk about it now, because it is a story for another day. Almost every one of us has in one way or the other not been fairly treated by the PDP. But despite this, we stayed back in the state to build the party.

I remember that during the last congresses of the party in the state, the delegate list of my local government for the PDP primaries was compromised by the leadership of the party in favour of Senator Samuel Anyanwu’s ally, who could not even win his polling unit. The list was compromised, and our people were disenfranchised; they were stopped from electing their preferred candidate during the primary election.

That led to the very woeful performance of the party during the last governorship election. So, when people say that the election was rigged in Imo State, I do correct that, because APC did not rig the election. The party truly won the election because the PDP had no better candidate. This is because when you bring up someone that cannot win an election; you have compromised the interest of the people. It simply means you don’t have any candidate.

 Many have questioned the timing of the mass resignation of PDP members in Imo State, asking why it came up after the last National Executive Council meeting of the PDP where the party was said to have failed to take certain decisions your camp had expected it to take. What is your reaction to this?

I am deeply saddened by that insinuation in some quarters. The fact remains that the issue of our mass resignation was long overdue. We just got it off our throat when we couldn’t hold it anymore. Why we had to wait till the outcome of the NEC meeting because we wanted to give the party the political space to reconcile the issues and concerns being raised.

However, after the NEC meeting, it became obvious that the party was not interested in looking at all those issues and giving them due attention. So what else can we do? We just had to take the bold step out. So, it was a very difficult decision for us to take for most of us. But we had no other option but to leave the party and see how we could align with other democratic political parties to forge ahead with our aspiration to rescue the state and the nation.

What did you expect the NEC to do at the last meeting?

We had expected the NEC to rejig the leadership of the party. This is because the national leadership of the PDP is already compromised. The party has become an appendage to the APC. The NEC was supposed to also look at the issues being raised by the state chapters of the party as they relate to leadership and the way forward.

But we found out that they (the PDP NEC) were not interested in anything, other than in doing the bidding of the established elements. So, we lost total confidence in the system; we felt our interest was no longer protected. Just as you know, politics is all about interest.

Going forward, has your group met on the next line of action to take and possibly the party to join?

We are still consulting with our people. It is not just a group; it is a mass movement. But for now, we are all under the umbrella of Redeem Imo, which comprises men and women of like minds. After due consultation, we will make known our next line of action.