By Dirisu Yakubu

ABUJA- The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Tuesday inaugurated its Convention, Disciplinary and Reconciliation Committees as part of efforts aimed at rebuilding the party ahead of the 2019 elections.

The Convention Committee is to be chaired by the governor of Delta State, Dr. Ifeanyi Okowa while Alhaji Sule Lamido and Senator Abiodun Olujimi were named deputy chairman and secretary respectively.

Nyesom Wike and Ibrahim Dankwambo, executive governors of Rivers and Gombe States respectively will co-chair the Reconciliatory Committee while Foreign Affairs Minister, Chief Tom Ikimi was named Chairman of the Disciplinary Committee.

Inaugurating the committees, Chairman, PDP National Caretaker Committee, Senator Ahmed Makarfi charged members to go do their best in bringing back into the fold of the party all those who left the PDP for one reason or the other.
“Reconciliation is very important. We must reconcile and bring back all those who have held important positions in the past including past President, Vice President and others,” Said Makarfi who added that the reconciliation is not restricted to post 2015 when some members quit the party following the defeat it suffered in the last general elections.

“The reconciliation goes as far back as possible. It is not an issue that has to do with the past one or two years,” he stressed.
Responding on behalf of the Convention Planning Committee, Governor Okowa pledged to conduct a successful convention which he said would “be the first place to showcase our strength,” adding that that the convention will be the first of its kind in recent times.
“Though a non-elective, we will organise a convention that will shake Abuja and Nigeria,” he said, urging members to get ready to work in the interest of the party.
On his part, Chairman of the Disciplinary Committee, Chief Tom Ikimi said he would work with the reconciliation committee to ensure that all aggrieved members return to the party.

Ikimi who said he played a key role in the formation of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) noted that the party is “now dying and is almost dead.”
PDP sacks Anambra factional leader
Meanwhile, the PDP yesterday kept faith with its promising of sanctioning erring members with the suspension of Chief Ken Emeakayi, a leader of a faction of the party in Anambra State.

Briefing newsmen at the party secretariat, National Publicity Secretary of the PDP, Prince Dayo Adeyeye said the decision was arrived at following Emeakayi’s flagrant disobedience of the party national leadership which had earlier dissolved all three parallel executives of the party in the state.
He added that Emeakayi, a known loyalist of former PDP Acting Chairman, Senator Ali Modu Sheriff was suspended for one month.

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