TheCable

Olisa Metuh, national publicity secretary of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), says there is no problem between the National Working Committee (NWC) of the party and the stakeholders committee proposing a conference on reforms.

The NWC had suspended the activities of the stakeholders committee led by Jerry Gana, fueling speculations that all is not well in the former ruling party.

But addressing the issue on Thursday, Metuh said the suspension of its proposed national conference was to accommodate all interests within the party.

“We felt that if we are going to do it, all interests will be accommodated in terms of the leadership of the national assembly and the governors’ forum,” he said.

“We will take nominees from state houses of assembly, nominees of youth leaders and the youth forum, because we want the party to go back to the youths.

“We want the youths to be involved in whatever we are doing.”

Metuh said due to a communication gap, the advert on the proposed conference was aired before Gana received the NWC’ letter.

“Immediately the advertisement was aired, the NWC was bombarded with lots of complaints saying that why should we spread the membership of the committee to include some of those who have left the party,” he said.

“They also complained about why we should exclude a lot of people whom they felt should have been involved and not those who walked out on this party.”

Metuh added that the NWC also felt it was necessary to suspend the propose conference as it was still awaiting Ike Ekweremadu’s committee’s report on reconciliation of members, due for submission next week.

“The NWC felt that the delay was necessary, especially when the highest elected member of the party, in the person of the deputy president of the senate, Ike Ekweremadu, had been given an assignment that he is yet to turn in,” he said.

He added that the NWC had no problem with “committed leaders of our party” who had been called into the conference committee.

“They will participate in the conference, but we need more people; we need more hands because this is the state of our party,” he said.

“We need the youths and members of the national assembly to be involved because that is all we have at the national level.

“We have neither president nor ministers, but we have senators and leadership of the national assembly. We wouldn’t want them to bombard us with complaints later.”