The allegation by the Rivers State Governor, Barrister Nyesom Wike, that the Senator Iyorchia Ayu-led Committee, consisting of two other former Senate Presidents and other National Assembly leaders, is a corrupt one has drawn flak from the Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Board of Trustees (BoT) who has demanded proof of the allegation.
\u201cI challenge anybody, anywhere to provide proof to any allegations of corruption\u201d, Senator Walid Jubrin, has said.
According to an agency report, Jubrin disclosed this\u00a0 in a statement he issued on Thursday in Abuja\u00a0 on the committee set up to\u00a0investigate the Minority\u00a0 leader, Ndudi Elumelu, and other PDP minority principal officers of the House of Representatives.
The BoT Chairman, who was reacting to Gov. Nyesom Wike\u2019s corruption allegation levelled against the \u00a0Senator Iyorchia Ayu committee on the emergence of Hon. Elumelu \u00a0 also said: \u201cHe who alleges must show evidence of corruption.\u00a0 It is not enough to accuse anyone of any wrong doing.
\u201cI call on anyone, both party member or non party member to come forward with evidence of corruption and you will see what I as chairman of the BoT will do,\u201d he said.
Nigeria Everyday reports that on Wednesday in Port Harcourt, the Governor, a strong PDP member, described the Ayu committee as the most corrupt in the history of the party.
Wike also boasted that the State Government has all it takes to fight his own party to a standstill.
Wike applauded former Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives,\u00a0Hon Austin Opara,\u00a0 for withdrawing his membership of the Ayu committee.
The panel is probing the emergence of two leaderships for the Minority Caucus of the House of Representatives. While one, recognised by House leadership, is headed by Hon. Ndudi Elumelu, the other has Hon. Kingsley Chinda. Chinda is from Rivers State, while Elumelu is from Delta.
In Wike\u2019s words, \u201cThe Committee set up by the PDP on the illegal emergence of Ndudi Elumelu is the most corrupt committee ever set up by the party.
\u201cWe thank our worthy son, Rt Hon Austin Opara for withdrawing from that committee,\u00a0 so that he is not entangled in the illegal activities of the tainted committee \u201c.
\u201cWe are warning PDP to be careful not to toy with Rivers State. Rivers State has all it takes to withstand the PDP and fight the party to a standstill.\u00a0
\u201cThe Rivers State Governor is not one of those Governors that anyone\u00a0can cajole.
\u201cThe Rivers State Governor is not one of those Governors that will kowtow to their illicit activities \u201c.
Nigeria Everyday further reports that Governor Wike is said to be angry because Chinda was jettisoned by the panel and the party because he is from the same State as National Chairman, Mr. Uche Secondus.
However, other sources say Wike is not happy with the way his choice for presidential candidate for the party, Governor Aminu Tambuwal, was outsmarted by the Atiku Abubakar political machinery in presidential primaries that held \u201cright under his nose\u201d in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital last year
That, coupled with huge funds he believes he has committed to the party without commensurate dividends, is said to be the reason he is acting at cross-purposes with the party.
But Senator Jubrin, in his Thursday statement, said that as the chairman of the party\u2019s BoT that he would not take any side with anybody as the board of trustees remained\u00a0 the soul and consciousness of the party.
\u00a0\u201cI call on us not to take side with anybody since the issue\u00a0 or issues will be openly discussed among ourselves,\u201d he noted.
He said: \u201cWe should be concerned with how to move the party forward and make\u00a0 the party strong\u201d\u200e.
Jubrin has said that the board would meet on Sept. 19 to discuss reports of its committee set by the board up to investigate the House of Representatives Minority Leadership crisis.
Jubrin said that the mere submission of the committee chaired by\u00a0\u00a0Sen. Iyochia Ayu,\u00a0set up to investigate PDP elected lawmakers\u2019 disobedience to party directives, did not imply clearance and clean bill of health to those involved.
Jubrin\u00a0 said that there were different three committees within the party set up to investigate the disobedience to PDP directives during the voting\u00a0 of principal officers\u00a0 of the 9th National Assembly.
According to him,\u00a0 there are still reports from the disciplinary committee headed by Chief Tom Ikimi and the report headed by Sen. Adolphus Wabara that would be considered.
\u201cWe have three other committees and the outcome of the Ayu\u2019s committee will not be in isolation of other committees like the Tom Ikimi Disciplinary committee and the\u00a0 Sen. Adolphus Wabara committee.
\u201cIt is true that the committee has submitted its report but the BoT will meet Thursday next week to discuss and take a decision on the recommendations,\u201d he said.
Jubrin however said that he did not know why the secretary of the committee, Austin Opara left.
\u00a0\u201cIt was when the report of the committee was submitted that I noticed that his column for signature was not signed.
\u201cI am not a member of the committee.\u00a0 Since the inauguration of the committee, I have not spoken to them,\u00a0 I have not visited or interfered with their work or given any input in the course of their work.
\u201cHe did not write or tell me why he left or did not sign after the submission of their work.\u00a0 As far as I\u2019m concerned,\u00a0 I will leave that for discussion next Thursday when the BoT will meet.
\u201cBut, I will not condemn any member of the committee without any proof of evidence of corruption,\u201d he said.
Jubrin challenged any member of the party with proof of allegations against any member of the committee to speak out as it was not enough to cast aspersions on respected Nigerians.
Jubrin also noted that the BoT would soon embark on a strategic visit to members across the nation with the first visit to Dubai to see and interact with former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar.
Additional reports by NAN
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The allegation by the Rivers State Governor, Barrister Nyesom Wike, that the Senator Iyorchia Ayu-led Committee, consisting of two other former Senate Presidents and other National Assembly leaders, is a corrupt one has drawn flak from the Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Board of Trustees (BoT) who has demanded proof of the allegation. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":20629,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20628","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20628","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20628"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20628\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20628"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20628"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20628"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}