By Kolawole Ojebisi
The security in and around the Wadata Plaza, the headquarters of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has been beefed up ahead of the party’s National Executive Committee meeting scheduled for today.
According to Channels Television, armed police officers swarmed around the opposition party’s headquarters amid rising tension over a proposed event that some party’s National Working Committee (NWC) members described as NEC Expanded Caucus meeting expected to take place today.
The police officers reportedly cordoned off Dalaba Street, which is the road leading to the Wadata Plaza.
The New Diplomat gathered that the police officers were deployed to prevent the proposed meeting.
Initially some staff members and stalwarts of the PDP were allowed entry into the premises of the secretariat without any resistance but the police officers later sent them out of the building.
The treatment was also extended to journalists as they were asked to leave the secretariat despite showing their means of identification to the police officers.
The PDP has been embroiled in a protracted multifaceted crisis, leading to the defection of prominent stakeholders of the party.
Chief of the problems plaguing the opposition party is the tussle over the leadership structure, particularly its secretaryship which has polarised the party’s prominent members.
The battle over the position of the party’s secretary led to legal tussle generating conflicting verdicts at different courts of jurisdiction between Samuel Anyanwu and Sunday Udeh-Okoye.
However, in a dramatic turn of events on Wednesday last week, the party’s acting National Chairman, Ambassador Umar Damagum announced the reinstatement of Anyanwu as the PDP secretary and cancellation of the party’s NEC meeting scheduled for today.
Damagum described Anyanwu’s reinstatement as a “difficult but widely accepted decision by many party’s stakeholders”
Meanwhile, hours after Damagum’s declarations, 11 members of the party’s National Working Committee (NWC) issued a statement to counter the acting chairman’s move.
They insisted the declarations are null and void.
The PDP’S BoT also backed the NWC’s decision the following day, stressing that the NEC meeting will proceed as earlier scheduled.
