The Senate Minority Leader and a chieftain of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Senator Abba Moro, has appealed to the Southeast caucus of the party to refrain from threats and focus on resolving the party’s internal crisis in line with a recent Supreme Court judgment.
Moro made the appeal on Arise TV’s political programme, Prime Time, where he addressed the PDP’s leadership challenges and the implications of the court’s ruling.
The Benue South Senator said that the crisis stems from the dual-position controversy involving Senator Samuel Anyanwu, who contested for governor while serving as the PDP’s National Secretary.
According to him, if Anyanwu had won, he would have automatically resigned from his party position. However, the Southeast caucus nominated a replacement, leading to legal battles.
The lawmaker pointed out that the Supreme Court ultimately ruled that the party, not the courts, has the authority to choose its officials, nullifying the processes that had produced Hon. Sunday Udeh-Okoye as a replacement.
“When Senator Anyanwu went to contest for governor, he expected to win by the constitution of the party because you cannot hold dual positions in the party and in government.
“If he had won and become the governor and assumed office as governor, definitely automatically you would expect that he had resigned from the position of national secretary.”
The former Interior Minister stressed that the PDP, as a law-abiding organisation, must comply with the court’s judgment.
He disclosed that the party’s National Working Committee (NWC) had accepted the Southeast’s nominee, Udeh-Okoye, pending ratification, but the Supreme Court’s intervention disrupted this process, adding that the party is now working to navigate the requirements of the ruling.
“The Supreme Court came with a verdict that all those processes, especially the court processes that threw up a replacement for Anyanwu, were set aside.
“And that it is the responsibility of the party to choose who their leaders are or who their officials are. That is the point that we are in here,” he explained.
