Caretaker Committee List: Raging battle for soul of PDP continues

The scramble for the control of party structures across states of the federation is threatening to further split the opposition Peoples Democratic Party, PDP.

The National Working Committee, NWC, of the PDP last week, released a list of caretaker committees for most of the 36 states of the federation after some pressure from stakeholders.

This decision was sequel to the expiration of the tenures of most of them. In order not to run foul of its constitution and the Electoral Act, the NWC decided to appoint caretakers to steer affairs in affected states.

As it is to be expected, not everyone is enamoured by the composition. State governors in states where the party has control are by convention leaders in such states.

As such, decisions on sensitive matters such as who controls the party machinery at this level are not taken without their input. In practice, they literally “handpick “ trusted allies for top positions in the state executive committees.

The caretaker committees list released by the NWC has elicited loud protests from none other than the Rivers State Governor, Siminalayi Fubara, the estranged political godson of Chief Nyesom Wike, now the powerful minister of the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, in an APC-controlled federal cabinet. Fubara’s grouse is that the time-honoured courtesies granted governors were accorded his estranged godfather with whom he has been having a running political battle since the 2023 elections.

He has told all those who care to listen to that as far as he was concerned, the list as released by the NWC for Rivers “cannot stand.”

According to him, what was agreed during the last meeting of party stakeholders was that the tenures of State Executive Committees should be extended for three months in states where tenures have expired.

He explained that the decision awaiting the ratification of the party’s National Executive Committee, NEC, didn’t make provisions for the addition or subtraction of names of existing party officials.