• North-East zone plots to pull out over chairmanship post • Gulak sues party, Secondus
The struggle for the leader­ship of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has taken a new twist, as the North-East chapter is perfecting plans to pull out of the party if it is not given the opportunity to serve out the chairmanship slot vacated by Alhaji Adamu Mu’azu.
This is coming at a time when the former political ad­viser to ex-President Goodluck Jonathan, Ahmed Ali Gulak, has dragged the Acting Na­tional Chairman, Chief Uche Secondus, to court demanding his removal as the boss of the party. He claimed that Secon­dus is violating the constitution of PDP by holding onto the chairmanship instead of call­ing a meeting of the National Executive Committee (NEC) to appoint a chairman from the North-East.
Secondus, formerly the Deputy National Chairman (South), has been overseeing the affairs of PDP since the res­ignation of the National Chair­man Mu’azu. Former FCT Minister, Bala Mohammed, has indicated interest to contest for the position. Secondus, howev­er, wants to hold sway till next March when the party will hold its National Convention.
As protest to Secondus’ con­tinued occupation of the office of National Chairman, Daily Sun gathered that the North- East has resolved to pull out of the party if someone from the zone is not appointed to com­plete Mu’azu’s term, who is from the zone.
A Board of Trustees (BoT) member, who doesn’t want to be named, said the North-East is miffed by PDP’s refusal to abide by the party’s constitu­tion, which zoned the office to North-East.
He said: “The North-East zone of PDP may be pulling out of the party any moment from now. The leaders of the zone have met and have agreed to leave the party.”
Although he did not disclose where the members will go if they quit the PDP, there are in­dications that they may team up with some disgruntled mem­bers of the ruling All Progres­sives Congress (APC) to form a new party or join the APC.
The source, however, said: “We will not talk about our destination yet. We will tell the world where we are going when the time comes.”
Meanwhile, Gulak in a suit filed at the Federal Capital Territory High Court, accused Secondus of usurping the office that constitutionally belongs to the North-East. Both PDP and Secondus are first and second defendants.
“The plaintiff avers that by Article 35 of the constitution of the first defendant, it is the duty of the second defendant to ensure that the provisions of the constitution of the first de­fendant is respected by sum­moning and presiding over the meeting of the National Execu­tive Committee of the first de­fendant, who then shall appoint a person from the zone where the former National Chairman hails from to become the sub­stantive National Chairman,” he said.
Gulak claimed that by the “zoning arrangement of the first defendant and by virtue of the state the plain­tiff comes from, the plain­tiff belongs to the North-East where Alhaji Ahmadu Adamu Mu’azu, the former National Chairman of the first defen­dant, who resigned on or about May 29, 2015, hails from.”
The former presidential adviser prayed the court to grant an order directing the defendants to “within seven days from the date of judg­ment and pursuant to article 47(6) of the constitution of the first defendant, appoint the plaintiff or any member of the North-East where the for­mer National Chairman of the first defendant originated, to act in the office of the National Chairman of the first defendant pending when elections are held to fill the vacancy cre­ated by the resignation of the former National Chairman, or­der of perpetual injunction re­straining the second defendant from continuing to act in the office of the National Chair­man of the first defendant or organizing or planning to or­ganize 
any election or carrying out any other functions or du­ties pertaining to the office of the National Chairman of the first defendant.
“An order directing the sec­ond defendant to render and publish to the plaintiff and other members of the first de­fendant, accounts of all finan­cial dealings, including but not limited to accounting for mon­ey handed over to him and how the same was expended within the period he purported to act in the office of the National Chairman of the first defen­dant.”