Elder statesman and leader of the Ijaw Nation, Edwin Clark, has urged the acting National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, Umar Damagun, to desist from destroying the party.
Clark alleged that Damagun was working with the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Nyesom Wike.
In an open letter issued by Clark to the PDP leader on Tuesday, August 20, 2024, the elder statesman noted that Damagun’s actions regarding the crisis that had rocked the Rivers State House of Assembly, among others, were against Section 109 as stipulated in the party’s constitution.
He said, “Your position, Mr. acting National Chairman, is antithetical to the position of Section 109 of the constitution. You took your party’s NEC to court, an organ you presided over. Yet you still have the presence of mind to remain in office, earning benefits that come with the office.
“From all indications, you are conniving with detractors of PDP to ruin the party, for the All Progressives Congress (APC). Allow Nigerians to decide what party they want through the ballot box.
“Stop colluding with Barr. Nyesom Wike to destroy the party. A day of reckoning will come for all of man’s activities.”
He advised the PDP leader not to sell his “soul and conscience for pecuniary and worldly gains, otherwise, you, Barr Wike and your cohorts will be consumed by the Rivers State crisis.”
Clark noted that the sole purpose of his letter was to urge Dmagun to “immediately set up a probe panel/committee to probe members like Barr. Nyesom Wike, and if found guilty, to face the appropriate sanctions as prescribed by the party’s constitution.
“It is not the setting up of a reconciliation committee under the chairmanship of Maj-Gen. Oyinlola, with whom when I discussed, asked him whom he is reconciling, because the G-5 members have disintegrated.
“While the governor of Oyo State, who was a member of the G-5, has retraced his steps back to his party fully, and today leader of the party in the South West, the other three are floating about.”
Wike, since his appointment as the FCT Minister under the President Bola Tinubu-led administration, had been accused of switching his allegiance to the ruling APC.
In August 2023, Wike had dared the PDP from taking anti-party actions against him, saying, “The person who will suspend me is when I couldn’t produce a governor, three senators, Assembly members. I have not seen that person. Nobody will do it.”
The former Rivers State Governor also noted that he was working for Tinubu, and not the APC.
He said, “I am not working for APC. I am working for Tinubu who has trust in me to help him deliver the renewed hope.”
He added, “I owe nobody any apology at all. I was in PDP and I worked for Ahmed Bola Tinubu to become the President of Nigeria.”
Clark, however, lamented at how Damagun took the party’s National Working Committee to court over the defection of the Martin Amaewhule-led faction in Rivers State.
“To urge you to also purge yourself of all malfeasance. As acting National Chairman of your party, you took your party’s NWC to court on the defection of the 27 members of the Rivers State House of Assembly.
“This is because they did not leave the PDP properly, they are still members of the party, even after the 27 members had publicly declared that they have defected and had already been received by the APC,” he said.
Clark, a former minister of information in the defunct First Republic, insisted that Wike be probed for “anti-party activities” and for insulting a reputable chieftain of the party.
“Therefore, let me state again, set up a probe panel to investigate the obvious and open anti-party activities of Barr. Nyesom Wike and for insulting the foremost leader of the party, Senator Adolphus Wabara, Chairman, Board of the Trustees of the party, which is the soul of the party.
“In fact, he should be expelled from the party for his crime against the party. I also wish to use this medium to call on all responsible and reasonable PDP party elders and members to take a bold step to flush out Barrister Wike from the party. He is not above the party. He should be expelled from it,” the letter concluded.
In June 2024, Clark told the leader of the Ijaw People’s Congress, Senator George Sekibo, to advise Wike, to let the Rivers State Governor, Siminalayi Fubara, have peace.