2019: One shot as PDP members protest imposition of candidates in Cross River

A member of the People Democratic Party (PDP) was on Monday shot as
protesters numbering over a thousand stormed the party's secretariat
in Cross River State.

An eyewitness, who gave his name as Nathaniel, said there was argument
between some members of the party during the protest and one
unidentified man brought out a locally made pistol and shot the
victim.

The protest was led by aspirants and prominent members of the party,
including the former state chairman of the party, Ntufam Ekpo Okon,
immediate past Special Adviser to Ayade on Security Matters, Mr. Jude
Ngaji and the immediate past commissioner for New Cities in Ayade's
government, Mr. George Ekpungu, among others.

Speaking to newsmen, the former Chairman of PDP, Ntufam Ekpo Okon,
said "The truth of the matter was that we are very conversant with
democratic values; we are conversant with the content of the
constitution of our party.

"We have read the guidelines for this primary, the process of
nominating party candidates and we did not jump into it, we have paid
our dues, now the process has started, they brought in imposition of
candidates.

"We bought our nomination forms and paid all fees that were required
only for us to be called and told that the National Executive
Committee of our party or National Working Committee of our party has
taken a position to direct that all incumbent members of the National
Assembly should be returned unopposed.

"That means if we go through the congress, we do not have any chance
because they will send names that have been chosen. They pretended as
if they have conducted congresses to nominate adhoc delegates,
meanwhile, they did not do congress anywhere in the 196 wards of Cross
River State," he said.

He said PDP had not learnt any lesson, stressing "One would have
expected that PDP would have come out of the situation wiser but if
this is what PDP has chosen to do, it is not acceptable, it is not
going to go down with us and we will not accept it.

"We members of the party insist that let there be level playing field,
we are ready to contest and we want to contest in a level playing
field. What they called congresses of Saturday was writing of names,
that must be canceled and let us do a democratically conducted
congress supervisede by INEC.

"Let us ensure that our party members make a choice, look at APC it is
doing direct primaries. If I remember, after the 2015 windfall that
finished us, the Ekweremadu's committee recommended direct primaries,
we jettisoned all that.

"To day, even the indirect primaries, we can't open our heart and do
the right thing, these days, people holding offices, do not want to be
assessed, you force them on the electorate not minding if there is a
local understanding in terms of zoning, you don't care about it, they
must go back.

"If this was the case, why don't you make pronouncement and stop
selling forms, you sold form, collected money from us and you turn
round and shortchange us, it is not acceptable," he stated.

Reacting the PDP State Chairman, Ntufam Edim Inuk asked the protesters
to present a protest letter for him to forward to the national
secretariat rather than disrupting activities in the party
secretariat.

"We are only the state chapter, if they are aggrieved and not
satisfied, they have right to write a petition to the National
Secretariat of the party.

"They can say they are not comfortable with the decision of the party.
That instruction did not come from this office, it is from the
National and as law abiding citizen, they have to do their protest
legally.

"Because anything beyond this, we will think and suspect that it is
from the opposition party; if they don't listen to us, we will think
that they are from the other party.

"All the aspirants are my people, you cannot impose candidates on them
but the decision of the party is supreme, you cannot go against it and
anything you can do is to protest by writing, I am a father of all."

When DAILY POST contacted the Police Public Relations Officer, Ms
Irene Ugbo, she confirmed the shooting of one person, adding that
policemen were deployed immediately information got to the
commissioner of Police.

"Immediately the commissioner of Police got the information, he
ordered the men to move to the scene, nobody was arrested but we were
told one person was shot," she added.