A fresh crisis is brewing in the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP over the position of the National Secretary of the main opposition party.
The position of the PDP scribe is now the subject of a tussle between Senator Sam Anyanwu and Sunday Ude-Okoye.
Anyanwu, the substantive occupant of the post, stepped aside last year to become the governorship candidate of the party in the November 11, 2023, Imo State election.
However, he did not submit a letter resigning from the national secretary post before emerging as the party’s governorship candidate in Imo.
While Anyanwu was pressing on with his governorship race, the PDP South East Zonal Executive resolved to nominate Ude-Okoye, a former National Youth Leader of the party, to replace him as the national secretary.
The Zonal Executive Committee had argued that it would be a distraction for Anyanwu to retain his position as party secretary at a time when he was the party’s Imo State governorship candidate.
The party’s Board of Trustees last week sent a letter to its acting national chairman demanding the recognition of Ude-Okoye as national secretary as ordered by the court.
The position of the BOT has also received the endorsement of one of the party’s governors, Seyi Makinde of Oyo State, who declared that he stood by the BOT on the issue.
The governor declared in a letter that it was desperation for anyone to “hold on to two things at the same time.”
You will recall that Ude-Okoye subsequently dragged the PDP before a Federal High Court in Enugu, which, in October last year, ordered the party to recognize him as the party’s national secretary.
The PDP National Working Committee countered this in a motion filed on October 24, 2023, asking the court to set aside the order, noting that “it was obtained by fraud and suppression of material facts” while also faulting the order for not being specific as to what position Udeh-Okoye should fill.
Earlier this month, Justice Inyang Ekwo of the Federal High Court in Abuja declared Anyanwu as the valid national secretary of the PDP.
The judge also restrained the national leadership of the PDP from appointing any person as acting national secretary until the completion of Anyanwu’s four-year tenure on December 9, 2025, as enshrined in the party’s constitution.
