You are not sole owner of PDP, you can be disciplined, Momodu replies Wike
By Tunde Opalana
A chieftain of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Basorun Dele Momodu has cautioned the Federal Caital Territory minister, Barrister Nyesom Wike to stop thinking that he cannot be disciplined by the party.
He warned the former governor of Rivers State that he does not own the party and cannot be bigger than the party, hence he can be subjected to disciplinary action in.line with the party’s constitution, should the beed arises.
Responding to Wike’s claim on a national television programme Wednesday evening that nobody can expel him from PDP, Momodu said this is a blatant lie.
Wike had told the anchor of Channels television political analysis programme, ‘Politics Today’, Mr. Seun Okinbaloye when asked of the possibility of getting expelled from the PDP for anti-party activities, that “nobody can expel me.”
Wike said “the person who will suspend me is when I couldn’t produce a governor, three senators, Assembly members. I have not seen that person. Nobody will do it,” Wike said.
“Who will discipline me? I should be the one calling for the discipline of these people who violated the party constitution.”
Advancing reason for this, the FCT minister said “the way that the party said there must be rotation and you violated the constitution of the party. Who dares say that they will suspend me? Who is that person? I want to dare anybody who will say that.”
Reacting through a statement from outside the the shore of the country, Momodu who was a PDP presidential aspirant and later the Director of Strategic Communications to the Atiku Abubakar presidential campaign organisation said there is no portion of the party’s constitution that forbid Wike from being sanctioned.
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He said if he were to be in the country, he would have personally respond “to the many arrogant lies” the programme anchor “allowed Minister Nyesom Wike to get away with.”
Momodu in the statement Thursday asked “when did Wike become the sole owner of PDP that he cannot be disciplined by a 24-year old political party? It would have been nice to know if he founded the party or when he acquired majority shares in it since he now has more money than Aliko Dangote.”
Puncturing Wike’s grievance that the PDP negated its rotational policy, he asked the minister to quote the portion of the PDP Constitution that says power must come to the South.
“He should tell the world the Chairman of the Zoning Committee that threw the contest open to all zones of the party and why he agreed to buy the Presidential nomination form.
“When did Wike become the champion of the South; was it after his bid to be Vice President to Alhaji Atiku Abubakar was rejected or after requests to handpick the juiciest Ministerial portfolios, like the ones he got from Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, were rebuffed. Would he have continued to flagrantly badmouth Alhaji Atiku Abubakar if he had selected him as his running mate?
“Wike and four other Governors were parading themselves as G5 while frolicking from Nigeria to Europe and back. Three of them from Benue, Enugu and Abia lost their Senatorial bids, spectacularly and resoundingly.”
He said the programme anchor should have asked Wike, “where are the other “suicide bombers” today? Gone with the wind. The G5 was always about one man’s ego and ambition.”
Momodu went further to disprove Wike’s claim contentiously, that he delivered Rivers State to Tinubu, which he said is just one state out of six in the South/South region.
“Was that enough to justify all this grandiloquent vituperation by Nigeria’s co-President, Wike? His three acolytes couldn’t deliver and they’ve since been abandoned in the lurch!! What happened to their regular joint press conferences?
“Wike claims all PDP Governors sent Ministerial nominations to Tinubu. He should tell us how many of them were eventually approved, except the one he handpicked from a neighboring state. Wike forgot to recommend any member of the G5. No nominee of Governor Seyi Makinde was visible on the Ministerial list,” he said.
He also questioned Wike’s comment on the ongoing Presidential Election Petition Tribunal, saying the minister seems to know more about the verdict ahead of the rest of Nigerians by saying on television that he and his people are only waiting for PEPT to finish, in order to unleash a reign of one party state on Nigeria.
“His mission is very clear, collapse PDP and hand over its remnants to APC, as long as he remains the co-President of Tinubu and allowed to go all out on his vengeful mission.
“Wike is obviously a poor student of history, he would have seen the dead end ahead. Barely three months ago, President Buhari was the Alpha & Omega of APC. His word was Law. Where’s he today… All the blames for the failure of Nigeria are being heaped on him.
“His most fastidiously loyal men, EFCC’s Bawa and Central Bank’s Emefiele are already in Tinubu’s gulag, indefinitely. Buhari must be wondering how quickly he’s been thrown under the bus… Truth is, as they say in America, that is how the cookie crumbles,” added Dele Momodu.
