PDP youths hold anti Alaibe protest in Abuja

Youth members of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Tuesday, besieged Wadata Plaza, Abuja, national secretariat of the party, seeking among others, the expulsion of Timi Alaibe from the party.

The youths under the auspices of PDP National Youth Rebirth Forum, in their numbers, displayed placards in solidarity with Governor Duoye Diri and called on the leadership of the party to save Bayelsa from Alaibe, describing him as an agent of the All Progressives Congress, APC. Alaibe, a former Managing Director of the Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC, is currently in court seeking the disqualification of Duoye on grounds that the primary election that produced him breached the provisions of the party’s constitution.

Addressing journalists in Abuja, national president of the forum, Bonire Solomon said the case instituted by Alaibe could threaten the ongoing peace in the state chapter of PDP if not well handled. He said: “The ongoing court case if not quickly handled and decisively too, has strong potential to derail the party in Bayelsa or, God forbid, can make the party lose out entirely if not settled immediately. “We have received a very credible report that Mr Timi Alaibe who cannot in any way benefit from the current court case is all out to do the bidding of some external forces in order to underline and destroy the control of Bayelsa by PDP.”

The group urged the Prince Uche Secondus-led National Working Committee, NWC to take a cue from “what recently happened in Kogi, where a party aspirant took the gubernatorial candidate to court and invalidated the candidacy of the party and render our efforts at the Kogi electoral tribunal useless, except the appeal court upturns the judgment of the High Court.”

Although the group noted that the former NDDC boss may have had a solid ground to feel aggrieved, it faulted the haste with which he went to court to seek redress. Solomon continued: “We have found out that Alaibe did not exhaust the internal redress mechanism of the party as required by the constitution before preceding to court against our party and her candidate, an action the law requires punitive measures for.”

The forum, therefore, demanded the immediate expulsion of Alaibe in compliance with Section 57 (3) of the PDP constitution. Reacting however to the protest, Alaibe said the judiciary should be allowed to decide the case without interference. “The court should be allowed to do its job,” he told our correspondent,” he said. Vanguard