20th August, 2024.
Clark Fires Wike
Amb. Umar Illiya Damagum,
Acting National! Chairman,
Peoples Democratic Party,
Wadata Plaza, Plot 1970, Michael Okpara Street,
Zone 5,
Abuja.
My Dear Acting National Chairman,
OPEN LETTER TO THE ACTING NATIONAL CHAIRMAN OF THE PEOPLES DEMOCRATIC PARTY (PDP) – WHITHER PEOPLES DEMOCRATIC PARTY (PDP): TO BE OR NOT TO BE
This letter, no doubt is my third letter to you, since you assumed office as the Acting National Chairman of the PDP. And I have decided to give it the title which I am giving to the book I am writing on the PDP, which by God’ s grace will be out soon: “Whither PDP: To be or not to Be.” The title which I decided to give to the book, has even become more expedient now due to the anti-party activities of Barr. Nyesom Wike, yourself and the National Secretary of the party, Mr. Samuel Anyanwu.
The recent very obvious anti-party activities of the three of you, have sent a shock wave through the nation. I will like to quote This Day online newspaper of Monday, 19th August, 2024, which described your actions as “Rivers: New Crisis as Damagum, Anyanwu’ s Letter to A’ Court Shocks PDP Legal Adviser…. According to section 42 of the PDP constitution, the national legal adviser of the party is to initiate all legal issues of the party. Latching unto this, Ajibade told THISDAY that he filed all legal processes for the Rivers State lawmakers coming up today, Monday, at the Court of Appeal in Abuja, but expressed shock and surprise at the decision of Damagum and Anyanwu, who wrote a counter letter to the processes that he had filed in court. When confronted why the acting national chairman wrote a counter letter, he said, “I am shocked. Go and ask him, for me, I have filed the processes in court as stated by the PDP constitution.”
Section 42 (1) a, b, c, of the PDP Constitution talks about the duties of the National Legal Adviser of the party. It says “There shall be a National Legal Adviser of the Party who shall be a lawyer of not less than 10 years post-call, whose functions shall be to-
Advise the Party on all legal matters;
Conduct all litigation and prosecute and defend actions on behalf of the Party, including its organs and officials in so far as the subject of the litigation affects the interest of the Party; and
Interpret the laws, regulations and Constitution of the Party in the event of any ambiguities.”
(emboldening and underlining mine)
Little wonder the National Legal Adviser, Kamaldeen Adeyemi Ajibade, SAN, said, as quoted by the above referenced ThisDay newspaper, that he was shocked.
Mr. Acting National Chairman, as a matter of fact, it is not just the National Legal Adviser of the PDP that is shocked about your actions; all well-meaning, reasonable, patriotic, faithful and honest party members, including many Nigerians, are equally shocked. The obvious antiparty activities of you and the National Secretary, both of whom are obviously tools in the hands of Barr. Nyesom Wike, used with all intention to bring down the government of Siminalayi Fubara, the Executive Governor of Rivers State, as confessed by Barr. Wike himself during his recent outing at Ogu/Bolo Local Government Area, the local government of Sen. George Sekibo, is palpable.
The recent actions of Barr. Wike before and during the last meeting of the party in April, shows clearly that he is all out to destabilize the smooth running of the Rivers State government; he is ready to use his closeness to Mr. President to insult, intimidate and harass members of the party, especially those in Rivers State, who have decided to tow the right paths of both the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and the Constitution of the PDP, and who in fact were the backbone of Barr. Wike’ s government as Governor of Rivers State, for eight years.
Section 1 of the 1999 Constitution of the country, says the constitution is supreme. Quoting, it says:
“Section 1(1) This Constitution is supreme and its provisions shall have binding force on all authorities and persons throughout the Federal Republic of Nigeria.”
My Dear Acting National Chairman, I am sure you have read all these sections of the constitution, including Section 109 (1) (g). You hold a degree in education; you have served the country at the international realm as Nigerian Ambassador to Romania. So, you are educated and exposed enough to understand what those sections are saying. And to give effect to section 109 , the Supreme Court had also ruled that defectors in the House of Assembly under the conditions prescribed, automatically loss their seats and no reversion. The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), has been properly informed about the defection of the members. Yet you and your National Secretary wrote a letter to the Court of Appeal with intention to aberrate that provision of the constitution. This is in itself, is a crime against the state, and unbecoming of some one who is occupying an exalted position as the office of national chairman of a political party.
Barr. Nyesom Wike’s insult and intimidation of Party Leaders:
You summoned a National Executive Council (NEC) meeting which Barr. Wike attended. The Chairman of the Board of Trustees, Sen. Adolphus Wabara, also attended the PDP Caucus meeting, in addition to attending the meeting of the National Executive Committee (NEC). As expected of a chairman desirous to make things work well in his party, Sen. Wabara called out that actions be taken against members carrying out anti-party activities. To Barr. Wike, the Chairman of the Board of Trustees has committed an offence by stating that measures should be taken against erring members. For this reason, Barr. Wike wrote a stinker in the form of a letter to him, using unprintable languages, and even threatening him, that he was coming for him. For the records Sen. Wabara is senior to Nyesom Wike both in age and in politics. He has held the position of number three citizen of the country as President of the Nigerian Senate, when Barr. Wike was not known, yet he (Nyesom Wike) had the temerity to send an insulting letter to him, written in red ink. Quoted below is the said letter:
“Senator Adolphus Wabara,
Haba, how will your late wife feel the way you embarrass yourself and your family?
You are a big shame to your generation.
Rivers State matter will consume you.
I will speak about you soon.”
This is just Barr. Wike’ s modus operandi, to try to cow and intimidate people to submission, to silence them, so that they will withdraw from a just cause, giving him room to display his high handedness, when he notices that he cannot buy such persons with money.
Barr. Nyesom Wike’ s arbitrariness knows no bounds. As a matter of fact, his actions and attitude has become unconstitutional. His desire to want to control Rivers State using “his structure”, is against Section 1 (2) of the 1999 Constitution which says that:
“The Federal Republic of Nigeria shall not be governed, nor shall any person or group of persons take control of the government of Nigeria or any part thereof, except in accordance with the provisions of this Constitution.”
As a Lawyer and Bencher, himself, Barr. Wike should know that he is breaching the Constitution of the country and his party, the PDP.
The actions of Barr. Wike to foment and or sponsor crisis in Rivers State, wanting to make it ungovernable for Siminalayi Fubara to function as duly elected Governor of the State, because he (Wike), according to his words, does not want to lose his “political structure”, is a clear attempt to want to “take control of … part” of the country.
It is also alleged that Barr. Wike had a hand in the court case that restrained prominent PDP members such as Uche Secondus, a former National Chairman of the party; Rt. Hon. Austin Opara, a former Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives; Dr. Abiye Sekibo, a former Minister of Transportation; Sir Celestine Omeha, from attending meetings. Sen. Lee Maeba, has been crying out about threat to his life. These are prominent members of the party. But they were restrained by Barr. Wike from attending meetings of the party.
I am happy, however, that the Court of Appeal has recently nullified that judgment, stating that the lower Court had no jurisdiction to entertain the case.
Still to show his crude and insatiable hunger for power, it was also alleged that Barr. Wike’ s “boys” had the temerity to harass some members of the Rivers State House of Assembly who came to attend PDP meeting in Abuja. They were man handled and their cloths torn, one of the “boys” even ‘ordered’ the Police to arrest and detain one of State Assembly members; Barr. Wike ulteriorly playing the lord, later directed the Police to release him.
With all due respect to the judiciary, a lot of unpalatable things are going on there. It is even said in some quarters that Barr. Wike now controls the judiciary, except the Supreme Court, where he directs all manners of unethical procedures and rulings to take place. For instance, recently, when one of the cases in respect of Rivers State came up in a Vacation Court, a Counsel to one of the parties in the case, submitted that a vacation court judge had no jurisdiction to hear the case being a vacation court, citing Order 46(5) of the Federal High Court Rules. And also adding that there was no urgency in the case. Responding, the learned Judge said “My Learner CJ gave me the order to continue this matter during vacation.
“Can I show you the authority given to me by my Learner CJ to continue this matter as vacation judge?”
Something has to be done, and immediately too, to tame characters who see themselves to be above the law, before they will grow too monstrous to be tamed. We already have enough issues on our hands as a nation, because the persons responsible did not act fast when the cases were brewing.
The purpose of this Open Letter, therefore, Mr. Acting National Chairman of PDP, is:
1. To call on you to immediately set up a probe panel/committee to probe members like Barr. Nyesom Wike, and if found guilty, to face the appropriate sanctions as prescribed by the party’ s constitution, and not the setting up of a Reconciliation Committee under the chairmanship of Maj. Gen. Oyinlola, with whom when I discussed, asked him whom he is reconciling, because the G-5, members have disintegrated. While the Governor of Oyo State who was a member of the G-5, has retraced his steps back to his party fully, and today leader of the party in the South-West, the other three are floating about.
2. To urge you to also purge yourself of all malfeasance. As Acting National Chairman of your party, you took your party’ s NWC to court on the defection of the 27 members of the Rivers State House of Assembly, that because they did leave the PDP properly, they are still members of the party, even after the 27 members had publicly declared that they have defected, and had already been received by the APC. Your position Mr. Acting National Chairman is antithetical to the position of Section 109. You took your party’ s NEC to court, an organ you preside over. Yet you still have the presence of mind to remain in office, earning benefits that come with the office. From all indications, you are conniving with detractors of PDP to ruin the party, for the All Progressives’ Congress (APC). Allow Nigerians to decide what party they want through the ballot box.
Stop colluding with Barr. Nyesom Wike to destroy the party. A day of reckoning will come for all of man’ s activities.
I wish and pray that you will not sell your soul and conscience for pecuniary and worldly gains, otherwise you, Barr Wike and your cohorts, will be consumed by the Rivers State crisis.
Therefore, let me state again, set up a probe panel to investigate the obvious and open antiparty activities of Barr. Nyesom Wike and for insulting the foremost leader of the party, Senator Adolphus Wabara, Chairman, Board of the Trustees of the party, which is the soul of the party. In fact, he should be expelled from the party for his crime against the party.
I also wish to use this medium to call on all responsible and reasonable PDP party elders and members to take a bold step to flush out Barrister Wike from the party. He is not above the party. He should be expelled from it.
Just last night, I watched the news when some persons claiming to speak in the interest of the PDP, in a press conference, were berating Hon. Ikenga Ugochinyere, a young man who today, is the only person who is openly speaking against the activities of Barr. Wike which are against the party. This group claim that Hon. Ugochinyere is working for the APC. If I may ask these young men, between Hon. Ugochinyere and Barr. Wike who is working for the APC, who is playing antiparty activities? I pray that these young men will search their conscience because everybody knows that Barr. Wike’ s madness in politics has
made him dance naked in the public, with one leg in the APC and the other in
the PDP, with all the intention to bring down Siminilayi Fubara’s government
Nyesom Wike has to go, if PDP must survive. This is my humble submission.
Chief (Dr.) E. K. Clark, OFR, CON
Elder statesman
