Jos — PDP National Chairman, Chief Audu Ogbeh has said there is no disagreement within the leadership of the party on the extension of the state of emergency in Plateau State, saying the issue was yet to be discussed officially at the party caucus level.
He told journalists at the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPPS), Kuru, near Jos on Monday that what appeared like disagreements were personal opinions being expressed by individuals and should be seen as such.
“We have not yet sat in caucus or any seat to discuss it, so these (comments) should be treated as individual opinions. When we meet, we’ll discuss it and the party will come out with its decision,” he stated.
Chief Ogbeh said it will be uncharitable for him to agree with suggestions that the recent submission of a bill for a Reconciliation Commission to the National Assembly by President Olusegun Obasanjo was a ploy to extend emergency rule in the state, insisting that the president was more concerned about restoring peace to the state.
He said it was now left to the legislators to consider the bill on its merits and act accordingly. He also explained that his support for the return of Chief Joshua Dariye as governor was based on principle, saying as party chairman he was not supposed to abandon any party man in crisis.
According to him, “As party chairman, I can’t abandon any of my men, whether he is the president, a governor or a councillor; and that’s our position which I take on principle. So by saying Dariye should return at the end of the state of emergency, I am not saying anything which any genuine party chairman will not say. That’s my position.”
Chief Ogbeh who was at NIPSS to deliver a lecture on Security and Governance to participants said his last visit to the state was aimed at reconciling the various groups within the party in the state adding “the process is rather slow but it is coming up.”
On how the state of emergency was affecting the growth of the PDP in the state, he likened it to a member of a group having malaria, a situation he said could neither be comfortable for party members nor for him as chairman.
However, newsmen were barred from covering the lecture ostensibly because of the sensitive nature of the topic.
