Just In: Former Senate President, Ken Nnamani Dumps PDP

 

Former Senate President and a stakeholder of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Senator Ken Nnamani Saturday dumped the party, saying he was stepping aside from partisan politics in the meantime.

Ken Nnamani told the leadership of the party that his exit from the PDP became imperative because his advise and appeal to the party leadership that there was the urgent need to rebuild the party after it lost the 2015 elections and to address the problem of impunity, fell on deaf ears.

In a letter to the leadership of the party, the former President of the Senate said, “We need to become a party of technocrats and professionals and not a party of mercenaries and rent seekers. We need to become the party of young men and women with new ideas and not a party of political dinosaurs.

It is clear now that these pleas have fallen on deaf ear.” According to him, the party was every day faced with the crisis of confidence and the contradictions in the party deepen, warning that the PDP would continue to lose members and morale if the situation was not addressed. In the letter titled, “PDP, the Burden and My Conscience,” Nnamani said, “without any iota of bitterness in my heart, I have decided to disengage from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and consequently step aside from partisan politics in the interim.

I wish to express my profound gratitude to the party that gave me the platform with which I attained the height I did in the politics of our country. “How I wish the efforts I mounted with some of my colleagues (many of whom have left the party) to keep the PDP on the path of its noble vision and values had been supported by those who were privileged to be at the helm of affairs of the party, it would have been a different day for the PDP.

It would have been a day of victory and pride not of defeat and shame. “I recall that the virus of corruption of values and mission was what those my colleagues and I set out to cure through the formation of the PDP Reform Forum in 2010/11. “We worked hard to draw up a new direction for the Party. This was to help steer the party away from illegality and impropriety so that PDP can fulfil its promise of being a vanguard of Nigeria’s political and economic development.

“A direction defined by strict adherence to basic rules and morality in the management of party affairs. Chief of these values is respect for choice of party members in electing party candidates for elections. With more than half a decade of championing such a fundamental but simple idea, I regret that the PDP leadership continues to rebuff internal democracy.

“The party allowed itself to be blinded by hubris to believe that it will remain in power and influence for 60 years in spite of several gross missteps and grievous misnomer. We foresaw this ditch and prescribed how to avert falling into it. But we were dismissed as idealistic. Today the idealists have become realists. “Recently, even after our avoidable abysmal electoral defeat, I continued to believe that we can still chart a new course and retrieve victory from the jaw of defeat.

I continued to urge the leadership of the party to believe that the time of defeat could be the time of renewal, and that renewal requires strategic thinking and bold actions. I urged that this is a time to re-embrace internal democracy and principled leadership to reposition the party for new politics. We are living in different times and we need new tools, ethos and codes of conduct. We need to become a party of technocrats and professionals and not a party of mercenaries and rent seekers.

“We need to become the party of young men and women with new ideas and not a party of political dinosaurs. It is clear now that these pleas have fallen on deaf ears. Every day the crisis of confidence and the contradictions in our party deepen. We continue to lose members and morale.

“The rebuilding some of us had urged on the leadership is not happening. Those who led us to defeat are determined to continue to lead the party as undertakers. “I do not believe I should continue to be a member of the PDP as it is defined today. This is certainly not the party I joined years ago to help change my country. I do not also believe that the PDP as it is managed today will provide an opportunity for me to continue to play the politics of principles and values which I set for myself as a young man on leaving graduate school and working for a large multinational in the United States in the 70s and 80s.

“Therefore, today I resign my membership of the PDP. In stepping out of partisan politics for the meantime, I will continue to be politically engaged. I will also continue to support the government and all the elected officers in Nigeria to repositioning the nation. I will also constructively criticize them when by commission or omission they take actions that could damage the prospects of transforming Nigeria into a productive, merit-based and honestly governed country.

“As I leave PDP, I wish the leaders a new awakening and ethical revival. I cherish all the friends I made while in PDP and hope the friendship will continue to flourish.” It would be recalled that in November last year, Nnamani had led 33 leaders and elders of the party to the National Working Committee (NWC) to partner with them, the Board of Trustees (BOT) and the National Executive Committee (NEC) aimed at rebuilding the party for the great task ahead.

The group led by the former Senate President had also called for urgent need to fill the vacancy created by resignation of the former National Chairman of the Party, Ahmed Adamu Muazu, in line with Article 47(6) of PDP Constitution, which provide that “where a vacancy occurs in any offices of the Party, the Executive Committee at the appropriate level shall appoint another person from the area or zone where the officer originated from, pending the conduct of election to fill the vacancy.”

Some of the 33 members led Nnamani, who had earlier advised the party NWC members were Sen. Esther Nenadi Usman; Prof. Rufai Ahmed Alkali, Senator Bala Mohammed; Gambo Lawan; Senator Ibrahim Mantu, Ahmed Gulak, Abubakar Gada; Onyebuchi Chukwu; Ndudi Elumelu, Jumoke Akinjide; Jimi Agbaje, Prof.ABC Nwosu, Babangida Aliyu, Achike Udenwa, among others.