PDP splits over choice of House of Reps Minority Leader

The Peoples Democratic Party has split over the appointment of the Minority Leader for the House of Representatives.
This followed the decision of the party’s Board of Trustees to back Hon. Ndudi Elumelu for the position of Minority Leader, while the National Working Committee had earlier announced Hon. Kingsley Chinda as its choice.
The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Rt. Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila, shocked the party when he announced Elumelu as the Minority Leader contrary to an earlier letter by the PDP announcing Chinda as the party’s choice.
However, the BoT on Wednesday endorsed Elumelu when he visited the Board’s Chairman, Senator Walid Jibrin, in his Abuja residence alongside other Minority Leaders of the House.
Others who visited Jibrin with Elumelu were Toby Okechukwu, Deputy Minority Leader; Gideon Gwani, Minority Whip; and Adesegun Adekoya, Deputy Minority Whip.
So also were there other members of the House elected on the platform of the PDP, who at the event pledged their allegiance to the party.
Elumele said his emergence was in accordance with the provisions of the House Rules that stipulate that members of opposition parties must select their own leaders.
He said: “We complied with the provisions of the law in arriving at selecting us and not only that sir, what is key is that out of 147 opposition members, 111 nominated us.
“You are our father, our leader, we believe in you, we believe in PDP and to tell that we are loyal of PDP and we have nothing against PDP, it is just by the rules that minority parties in the House of Representatives must come together to elect those to lead them.
“On that we complied with provisions of the rules of the House.
“We promise you, we will not let even our immediate party down.
“We will be very, very mindful of the fact that we are in opposition and that the voice of the opposition must be heard.
“However, we will do it in line with ensuring that there is due respect for one another.
“What is important is for us to do things that would enable this nation to move forward and ensure that there is mutual respect.”
Responding, Jibrin said the selection was right.
He said the party would defend the new team.
He said: “On behalf of over 100 members of the BoT, I want to congratulate you.
“We are talking with one voice.
“We have contested and we are together in bringing out honourable people from the House of Representatives.
“We are equally happy that the Chairman of the new team must be happy.
“As a second Republic Senator, what you have done is what we did in the past and this is in order and I hope nobody will come to make any challenge.
“We are going to defend what you have done with the best of our ability that these people elected will remain in the House of Representatives.
“I want to assure you that we are in opposition but we are not on a blind opposition.
“We have to cooperate with others in order to move Nigeria forward.
“The beauty is that this is the highest organ of this party and I assure you, we are behind you.”