No need for Amaechi to leave –PDP

Peoples Democratic Party leadership has asked Governor Rotimi Amaechi of Rivers State not to leave the party. It noted that with the ongoing reconciliation in the party, there was no need for any of its aggrieved members to defect to another party. The party’s acting National Publicity Secretary, Mr. Tony Okeke, stated this in Abuja on Monday. Okeke was responding to a threat by Amaechi that he could defect to another party if the PDP no longer wanted to accommodate him. But Okeke, who spoke to one of our correspondents on Monday, said, “There is no need for him (Amaechi) or anyone to leave the party. The reconciliation efforts going on in the party now are all encompassing and we are very positive and hopeful and because of this, there is no need for anyone to leave the party, not even now or in the future.” The PDP, which suspended Amaechi from the party on May 27, set up a committee to investigate the anti-party activities accusations levelled against him. Meanwhile, a former Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Mr. Austin Opara, has dismissed Amaechi’s claim that he made him (Opara) a principal officer of the House of Representatives. Opara, who spoke with journalists in Abuja, also said it was wrong for the governor to tag him a betrayer. He wondered how Amaechi, as the then Speaker of the Rivers State House of Assembly, could have influenced his emergence as a principal officer of the House of Representatives, when he was not even a member of the National Assembly. He said, “The process of electing the presiding officers of the House of Representatives is well known. It is through election on the floor of the House. “Since the office of the Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives was zoned to the South-South, I spoke to all the governors from the zone and my state governor. How did Amaechi make me the Deputy Speaker?” Also, a member of the House of Representatives, Mr. Dakuku Peterside, has warned that the PDP will lose the 2015 election if it fails to reconcile its aggrieved members and resolve the crisis rocking it. Peterside, who represents Opobo/Nkoro/Andoni Federal Constituency, stated that without reconciling members of the party, it would be difficult for it to win the next general elections in the country. The lawmaker said the PDP was currently in disarray, adding that any political party in such a situation would not win any election. Peterside, who is the Chairman, House Committee on Petroleum Downstream, said though Amaechi was still in the PDP, he would not hesitate to leave the party if the governor decides to defect to another party. The lawmaker said, “If you say the PDP in Rivers State is in disarray, are you not sure the party (PDP) in Nigeria is in disarray?”