Femi Folaranmi, Yenagoa
A group of People’s Democratic Party (PDP) stakeholders called Integrity Group (IG) has raised the alarm over alleged cloning of delegates’ identities by the chairman of the party, Mr Cleopas Moses, ahead of the September 3 governorship primaries.
But the party through its spokesman, Osom Mackbere, has dismissed the allegation noting that Moses was not involved in any manipulation of the delegates.
IG in a statement by its coordinator, Mr Tony Ile, accused the leadership of the party of commencing the process to manipulate the delegates with a directive to ward and local government statutory delegates to submit details of their voters’ identity card and PDP membership card numbers to the party.
According to him, those not ready to comply with the directives are branded as traitors and are being harassed by political thugs to part with the details.
Ile called on the national leadership of the party to quickly intervene and set up a committee to investigate the serious and grievous allegations against the party leadership.
He also pleaded with Governor Henry Seriake Dickson to call the state party leadership to order before its actions polarise the party before the November 16 governorship elections.
“It is quite unfortunate for anyone to indulge in such an inglorious act. The only plausible explanation for the funny act is to clone the cards in order to exclude some delegates that do not support their preferred candidates. We do not believe that our party executive in this state, which is expected to show good conduct as it relates to the conduct of the PDP gubernatorial primaries coming up soon, will be involved in the nefarious act. The issue of directing ward and local government executive members of the party to submit their party identity cards and also voter’s card numbers is surely an attempt to discredit and undermine the lofty intentions of the national leadership of the party to conduct free and credible primaries of the party. The illegal act would further polarise our party and make us vulnerable for defeat in the November 16 poll. Aggrieve members will have no other options than to seek refuge in other political platforms,” Ile said.
However, Mackbere, in a swift response said the IG is a faceless group bent on spreading fake news with the motive of destabilising the party.
“We are not aware of such allegations. But am happy that they have made it known that they have filed their complaint to the highest organ of the party to investigate and administer sanctions. For a fact, such things are not happening within our party.”