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In a statement released today by members of staff of the party under the aegis, Peoples Democratic Party Staff Welfare Association and signed by the association's chairperson, Ngozi Nze, the workers alleged that Mr Olisa Metuh betrayed ex president Jonathan during the election campaign period because he, GEJ, refused to make him Metuh his campaign spokesperson.
They also debunked rumors that they are being sponsored by APC. Excerpts from their explosive press statement below
“We are not surprised that the allegation will become the most fashionable means of covering tracks. wide window into the impressionable character of the man who has been in saddle as the party’s image-maker and an ominous signpost into the shallow manner the publicity of the party has been run”. We wish to state that this is a man whose conduct, demeanour and media outings have been a repulse to professionalism and a source of embarrassment to party members.
We therefore place on record that the majority of the establishment staff of the PDP are not just unrepentant members of the party who have spent over sixteen years in service; who have assimilated the PDP ethos as a way of political life but are also the repository of the party’s institutional memory whose spirit can hardly succumb to the ephemerality of power loss. Who plays anti-party you may ask? Staff members who are genuinely resisting the morally repugnant and obsessively corrupt NWC so that the PDP will survive or the likes of Olisa Metuh who has a track record of anti-party given his open endorsement of APGA candidate in 2013 Anambra governorship election, the subsequent denigration of PDP candidate and his chances on live television program less than 24 hours after the election, even as the result was being awaited?
Earlier in January 2010, Anambra governorship election, Metuh as National Vice Chairman, South East, abandoned Chukwuma Soludo, the PDP candidate while openly galvanizing support for Hope Democratic Party candidate, his friend and benefactor. The PDP did not only woefully lose in Otolo Nnewi Ward 1 of the Party’s zonal vice Chairman but came a distant third in his polling booth! What a faithful party officer! Again, we have incontrovertible evidence that the man who is PDP Publicity Secretary worked assiduously against the presidential candidate of the PDP, former President Goodluck Jonathan, in the last election in order to requite the ex-President for rejecting him as Director of Publicity of the Presidential Campaign which was given to Femi Kayode, a development which came after Metuh had squandered a whooping sum of 450 million naira media fund earlier approved for the office of PDP Publicity Secretary by President Jonathan. Last week’s controversial congresses in Anambra is another signpost to the destructive trajectory which the likes of Olisa Metuh is driving the PDP to. The chairman of the congress, Ike Abonyi, no doubt a veteran journalist is at present in Olisa Metuh’s employ as his media adviser. Another member of the committee, Collet Odenigbo is Metuh’s friend and adjutant on special assignments while the man returned as State Organizing Secretary, Sam Ben, is Metuh’s personal assistant. The process was so personalized to the chagrin of party members, especially leaders who were also illegally compelled to part with certain amount of money. As we write, the party is still waiting for the result of the congresses a week after it was held, pending when Metuh is done with his conclave of distortion and extortion. This is the same man who we reliably gathered, is surreptitiously scheming to emerge as the Organizing Secretary of the party next year. To do what? Turn the party organization into Idumota Market and institutionalize exaction, graft and impunity.
This is a man who started in 1999 as a zonal youth leader, then National Ex-officio, Acting National Auditor, Zonal Vice Chairman and now publicity secretary. It is either his umbilical cord was buried at Wadata Plaza or that he can’t survive on any other thing except the PDP. We make bold to add that the worst form of anti-party is the mindless plunder of the party resources by the NWC which Olisa Metuh is an integral part of, in fact the leader of the body’s extortion gang. Recall that the same man was the Chairman of Kogi State congresses which held last week and match it with the fact that the widely rumoured request for One billion Naira from the State governor emanated the same week. Indeed labeling the staff of the PDP could be a veiled attempt to justify the huge sum of 70 million naira which Metuh collected in July in the name of fighting the APC in the media. We wish to therefore advise him and the NWC to respond to gritty issues raised in our press briefing without which the fortunes of the party will continue to dwindle,” the workers said.
The attention of the Office of the National Publicity Secretary has been drawn to a press statement by persons purporting to be officials of PDP Staff Welfare Association, wherein they engaged in direct attack and threats on the person of the National Publicity Secretary, Chief Olisa Metuh.
From all indications, those behind the statement chose to drift from issues and narrowed on the National Publicity Secretary. This is not unexpected given the role of the National Publicity Secretary in the rebuilding of our great party and how uncomfortable the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) has been for his outspokenness.
We are aware that the anti-PDP forces have easily found a handful of disgruntled PDP staffs as willing tools to attack Chief Metuh with a view to bringing him to public odium, distract him and deny our party a credible voice to propagate its positions. These forces had even gone to the extent of engineering some discontented PDP members to portray statements by the National Publicity Secretary as his personal opinions in the attempt to discredit and intimidate him.
For the avoidance of doubt, we wish to state categorically that the National Publicity Secretary will not be deterred or detracted by such threats and cheap blackmails as he remains committed to his role in the rebuilding of the PDP and in providing firm, credible and issue based opposition to the ruling party.
This office would not join issues with these elements, however we make bold to state that Chief Olisa Metuh, being aware of the challenges that comes with his new role has offered himself, his office as well as all his private companies for probe by the Department of State Services (DSS) or any other government agency for that matter.
We also find it laughable that anybody would criticise the recent PDP congresses in Anambra and Kogi that have been widely applauded to be transparent and credible as established by the peace and harmony that characterised the processes. One also wonders how the issue of congresses helps the case of welfare matters being pushed by the staff, if not for the ulterior motive of destroying the PDP publicity.
The authors of the press statement deliberately refused to appreciate Chief Olisa Metuh’s immense contributions in the party and the fact that he became the longest serving member of the National Executive Committee due to hard work and the confidence members of the party repose on him as an individual.
Finally, this office is happy that those after Chief Olisa Metuh have for now, chosen to demand for investigation instead of resorting to plots to assassinate him. However, we restate that the National Publicity Secretary will not in any way be cowed or intimidated by the threats, blackmails and attacks by anti-PDP forces to abandon his mandate as spokesperson of our great party.
Signed:
Richard Ihediwa,
Special Assistant
to The National Publicity Secretary
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