New PDP Chairman, Baraje Asks President Jonathan To order Reopening Of Its Offices In Abuja, Bayelsa, Rivers, Kwara And Kaduna

Police siege at New PDP secretariat

Chairman of the breakaway faction of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), known as the New PDP, Mr. Kawu Baraje, has called on Nigeria's President Goodluck Jonathan to reopen its office in Maitama, Abuja, the country's capital, which was sealed off by the police last week.

Mr. Baraje hinged his action on a ruling by An Abuja High Court presided over by Justice E.S. Chukwu that the group should be allowed to operate without any harassment or inhibition as its existence does not contravene any known law. The chairman of the faction also appealed to the Nigerian president to reopen its other offices hitherto sealed by the police in Kwara, Rivers, Kaduna and Bayelsa States.

In a statement signed by the faction's National Publicity Secretary Eze Chukwuemeka Eze, Mr. Baraje said, "To the glory of God, contrary to the prayers of Alhaji Bamanga Tukur’s faction of PDP, a Federal High Court in Abuja on September 13th 2013, once again ruled  Justice E.S. Chukwu in his ruling held that there was no evidence before the court to show any tardiness on the part of Baraje’s faction as claimed by the Tukur-led faction, which requested it to stop the Baraje-led PDP from operating.

"In view of this ruling, the Police no longer has any valid reason (it never did, anyway) to continue to seal our Secretariats. We implore the president to save the Police from the plot to ridicule it by using it to perpetrate illegalities such as sealing the lawfully-acquired National Secretariat of PDP and our Secretariats in states like Rivers, Bayelsa, Kaduna and Kwara."

According to the faction, "Powers that be should as a matter of urgency stop projecting and portraying the Police as a tool of injustice and attack on the perceived political opponents of Mr. President

"We will continue to use the Judiciary to prove to Tukur’s faction that the days of running the affairs of our great party with impunity and high-handedness are gone for good. The time has come for him to correctly read the handwriting on the wall and honorably throw in the towel along with his National Working Committee (NWC)."

The New PDP also inaugurated a four-member committee to be chaired by the Niger State Governor Babangida Aliyu, to look for ways of resolving the stand-off between the Nigeria Government and the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), which had resulted in the union embarking on strike.

Other members of the committee are Adamawa State Governor Murtala Nyako, Hon. Chinwo Ike, President of University of Port Harcourt alumni and Mr. Timi Frank, the faction's national youth leader.