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Akinwande Soji-Ojo
Barely a month after its candidate lost the presidential election, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has announced the suspension of former governor of Ekiti State, Ayodele Fayose; former Senate President, Pius Anyim; Prof Dennis Ityavyar from Benue State and Aslam Aliyu from Zamfara State.
The party disclosed its in a statement signed by its National Publicity Secretary, Debo Ologunagba, on Thursday.
According to Ologunagba, the suspension took effect on Thursday, adding that the decision was reached after an extensive review of the affairs of the party, pursuant to the provisions of the PDP Constitution 2017 (as amended).
The PDP also referred the governor of Benue State, Samuel Ortom, to the National Disciplinary Committee over his reported involvement in anti-party activities.
“The PDP urges all leaders, critical stakeholders and teeming members of our party across the country to remain united and focused at this critical time,” Ologunagba added.
Reacting, Fayose, in a statement by his media aide, Lere Olayinka, described his suspension by the Senator Iyorchia Ayu-led National Working Committee as “the last kick of a dead horse.”
The former Ekiti governor said Ayu and his cohorts are only entertaining themselves with the purported suspension as their latest comedy skit.
Fayose noted that he and others who stood by the party when Ayu and his cohorts left it to die would rescue the PDP and give life back in due course, adding, “the purported suspension will have no leg to stand.”
Fayose had earlier in an interview with Arise TV, attacked the party and Ayu, following the defeat of the PDP presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, in the February 25 presidential election.
“This Ayu was the one who led Atiku to the gutters. They took him to the gutters. You see when a man cannot come out. At 80, what does he want to do after that?” he had said.
Reacting to a video showing members of a Civil Society Organisation who protested against the outcome of the election in Abuja, Fayose said: “Let me first fault the people I saw here today, that are calling themselves civil society. No, they are PDP members,” he said.
In his own reaction, Ortom said the PDP National Working Commitee’s was acting in contempt of a subsisting court order by referring him to the disciplinary commitee of the party for alleged anti-party activities.
Ortom, in a statement by his Chief Press Secretary, Nathaniel Ikyur, also said that it was contemptous for the PDP leadership to disregard the court order, which barred the party or any organ of the party from issuing any disciplinary measure against him.
“I think the national leadership of our great party is losing its sense of direction. Instead of the leadership to sit back and think of ways of how to rebuild the party from the ruins of the defeat from the just concluded elections, they are going about chasing imaginary shadows.
“In any case, the first person the party should refer to the disciplinary committee should be the national chairman of the party, Dr. Iyorchia Ayu. The national chairman lost his polling unit, lost his ward, local government, and even the state,” Ortom said.