PDP Plans To Expel Nnamani, Masari, Others - G-21 Not Behind Court Action - Nnamani

Idowu Samuel, Abuja - 08.03.2008

STILL savouring its victory in court against the move by some aggrieved members to stop its National Convention today, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has started considering the option of purging itself of the members who took it to court, including their yet-to-be-identified sponsors.

The Federal High Court had last Friday dismissed a suit filed by four of the PDP members who called for an injunction to stop the PDP National Convention on the ground that the Convention was not properly called and the Convention Committees set up were not properly constituted.

The Acting National Publicity Secretary of the PDP, Hon. Bayo Alao, who spoke shortly after the court gave its ruling on the suit, said the party would no longer brook nonsense with any member involved in anti-party activities.

He said it was wrong and unconstitutional for any member to take the PDP to court over an issue which he said never warranted a court case.

According to him, the PDP had no other option than to expel those behind the suit against the National Convention because they breached the constitution by their anti-party activities.

He said, “Even though the people who went to court with the aim of stopping the convention are really not known members, we are aware that certain forces are behind them, and we shall unveil them since they never meant well for the interest of the party.

“We do not understand why a member of the party would be so disloyal as to take the party to court on a crucial issue as the National Convention.

“Everything about the convention was constitu-tional. The National Executive Committee of the party endorsed it. So, why should they go to court?

“The court threw away the case because it was ill-motivated and had no substance. But the party is never in the mood to spare those behind it and so it would investigate the issue and then punish those found culpable.”

Members of the G-21 who had initially threatened to institute a legal action against the PDP on constitutional matters are being suspected at the PDP National Secretariat as the masterminds of the court action taken by some members of the party against the PDP.

The G-21 had openly announced that it had shelved the idea of taking the party to court, since according to it, members believed in achieving its aims and objectives by means of persuasion and dialogue.

The former Senate President, Sen. Ken Nnamani, who heads the G-21 in an interview with Saturday Tribune, described the suspicion against the group in respect of the court issues as “nonsense”, stressing that no member of the group had anything to do with the PDP members who filed a suit against the National Convention.

Said Nnamani, “We had said it before now (and openly too) that we would not go to court to press for anything.

“We said that because of the need to dismiss an impression that we are being used. Moreover, the PDP is a family to which we all belong and where issues could be amicably resolved.

“If the G-21 had any reason to go to court, I would have been there in the court physically for everybody to see. I would have been there as a plaintiff. You don’t go to court if the issue involved is not serious, and in any case, it was never part of our objective to do so.

“I am not a kind of person who would do a thing behind. If I believe in a cause, I follow it; so anyone who is linking me with the court case is not serious and should not be taken seriously.

“Our own is to use a persuasive means to achieve our political objective and not go to court.”