As the ‘fight’ for the heart and soul of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, continues in Cross River State, a sweeping gale of suspensions appears set to hit the party as critical stakeholders within the party fine tune plans to reposition the party.
Perhaps the clearest indication so far of what is to come is the widely publicised but contentious suspension of the state chairman of the PDP, Edim Inok Edim, by his indigenous Ward 3 Executive in Calabar Municipality, announced just days ago. Party insiders who pushed for Edim’s suspension secretly maintained to www.calitown.com that the chairman appeared not to have followed the path of honour as certain elements in the party fought and made public, a list of ward and chapter Executive members that the national secretariat of the party has since, in a Twitter post, declared to be a forged list. A trending video of Edim, struggling to authenticate the fake list showed clearly the enormity of his attempt to verify the fake list and further showed that he may be a willing pawn in a deceitful political game.
Those who may be worst hit are party men and women, “who have been very vocal and visible in supporting the serial decimation of our party in CRS”, we were told. It was also gathered by www.calitown.com that the inner ring of persons behind the forged list, as declared by the party, who have since been identified, will be suspended from the party and additionally face the risk of prosecution in court for their role in the manufacture of the fake list. Pressed to give up probable members to be suspended, our source advised that we wait for the outcome of all the internal processes that will throw up the names.
“Difficult as it is, we will try to heap only some of the blame for all of these evil actions on state governor, Ben Ayade, the remainder of the blame must fully go to those politically desperate elements within our party who have formed a ring around the governor for pecuniary reasons and then give the man all the wrong advice. These people can no longer be allowed to function within our ranks, they will be eased out of the party so that real and accountable party men and women will redirect the affairs of our party”, we were further informed.
Meanwhile, while it looks certain that a considerable measure of party power has been wrestled out of Ayade’s grip, a veil of uncertainty appears to have been thrown over the conduct of local council elections in the state. Several persons, originally handpicked by the governor and his acolytes for this poll, are becoming apprehensive by the day that this election may never hold. The situation is further worsened by the governor’s decision, to against all sound advice, dip his hands into council funds, netting a huge N4.6 billion, from the N250 million per LGA, purportedly for the building of a cargo airport in Obudu. “This is a blow on our collective consciousness. The man just sits down and concocts windows of opportunity from where he whets his financial appetite. Where is the superhighway, deep seaport, Calasvegas, spaghetti flyover, and many others? We can’t see them but he has seen several billions of naira and constantly is on the lookout for schemes through which state funds are fritted away; it is so unfair”, we were told.
