Enugu gov, others defy party’s national hqt
■Insist Asogwa must be state chairman
The Peoples Demo­cratic Party (PDP), Enugu State Chap­ter yesterday held an extra-ordinary meet­ing of its State Executive Committee (SEC) where it reaffirmed the appoint­ment of Chief Ikeji Asog­wa as the new state chair­man.
Asogwa was first appoint­ed chairman penultimate week following the resigna­tion of Chief Vita Abba, who has indicated interest in the House of Representatives.
But the National Working Committee of the PDP in Abuja refused to recognise the appointment of the new chairmen in Enugu and a few other states, preferring to recognise Elder David Aja, the deputy chairman of the Enugu State chapter as the one to replace Abba.
However, at the meeting yesterday which took place at the party secretariat, the chapter said it convoked the extra-ordinary meeting at the instance of 86 out of 109 of SEC members in the state.
The party in a four-para­graph communiqué after the meeting signed by its Public­ity Secretary, Dr Okey Eze and made available to Satur­day Sun charged Asogwa “to take all necessary measures in his capacity as the chair­man to oversee and ensure smooth and successful con­gresses and party primaries and victory for the party at all levels in the 2015 general elections.” The PDP’s ward congresses hold today in the 17 local government areas of the state.
The communiqué reads in part: “Following the request by 86 members out of the 109 members of the State Executive Committee of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Enugu State, which represent more than two-third of the SEC membership in the state, ably empowered to hold an extra-ordinary meeting in line with Article 24(4) of the PDP Constitu­tion, which stipulates that ‘an extra-ordinary meeting of the State Executive Committee shall be held if requested for, by two-third of the members of the State Executive Com­mittee’, SEC met today, October 31st, 2014 and de­liberated on urgent and fun­damental issues affecting the party in the state and took the following decisions:
“Noted the resignation of Engr Vita Abba from of­fice as the chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Enugu State, which enables him stand for elec­tion in the forthcoming party primaries in the state.
“In line with Article 47 (6) of the PDP Constitution, which states that ‘where a vacancy occurs in any of the 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’, appointed Chief Ikeje Asogwa who is from the same zone with the former state party chairman as the new chairman of the party in the state, with im­mediate effect, pending the election of another chairman at a state congress to be con­vened for that purpose.”
Those who attended the extra-ordinary SEC meeting include Governor Sullivan Chime, his Deputy, Rev. Ralph Nwoye, Speaker of the State House of Assembly, Hon. Eugene Odo, former Senate President and mem­ber of PDP Board of Trust­ees, Senator Ken Nnamani, members of the National As­sembly, a member of Board of Trustees, Rex Onyeabo, national and zonal officers of the party from the state, council chairmen and their deputies, LG party chairmen, state executive members of the party, among others.
By CHIDI NNADI, ENUGU

CHIME DARES PDP