Metuh betrayed Jonathan for refusing to appoint him spokesperson — PDP workers

The Peoples Democratic Party Staff Welfare Association has described as “an absolute bunkum, a clumsy, and blundering blackmail”, an allegation by the National Publicity Secretary of the party, Olisa Metuh, that staff members were being sponsored by the APC to destabilize the PDP.

The association said such a weak shot from a mortally crippled arsenal of witch hunt is incapable of breaking the resolve of the staff to expose the thieving band in the PDP’s National Working Committee and restore the core vision of the party.

“We are not surprised that the allegation will become the most fashionable means of covering tracks,” the staff said.

The staff are challenging the PDP’s move to sack half of its work force and cut by 50 per cent the pay of the remaining workers, just two months after leaving power.

The workers have accused the NWC members of squandering over N12 billion of party funds, and destroying the former ruling party.

In a statement Saturday, the chairperson of the workers’ association, Ngozi Nze, and Secretary, Dan Ochu-Baiye, said the allegation of being sponsored by the APC is a “wide window into the impressionable character of the man who has been in saddle as the party’s image-maker and an ominous signpost into the shallow manner the publicity of the party has been run”.

“We wish to state that this is a man whose conduct, demeanour and media outings have been a repulse to professionalism and a source of embarrassment to party members.

“We therefore place on record that the majority of the establishment staff of the PDP are not just unrepentant members of the party who have spent over sixteen years in service; who have assimilated the PDP ethos as a way of political life but are also the repository of the party’s institutional memory whose spirit can hardly succumb to the ephemerality of power loss.

“Who plays anti-party you may ask? Staff members who are genuinely resisting the morally repugnant and obsessively corrupt NWC so that the PDP will survive or the likes of Olisa Metuh who has a track record of anti-party given his open endorsement of APGA candidate in 2013 Anambra governorship election, the subsequent denigration of PDP candidate and his chances on live television program less than 24 hours after the election, even as the result was being awaited?

“Earlier in January 2010, Anambra governorship election, Metuh as National Vice Chairman, South East, abandoned Chukwuma Soludo, the PDP candidate while openly galvanizing support for Hope Democratic Party candidate, his friend and benefactor. The PDP did not only woefully lose in Otolo Nnewi Ward 1 of the Party’s zonal vice Chairman but came a distant third in his polling booth! What a faithful party officer!

“Again, we have incontrovertible evidence that the man who is PDP Publicity Secretary worked assiduously against the presidential candidate of the PDP, former President Goodluck Jonathan, in the last election in order to requite the ex-President for rejecting him as Director of Publicity of the Presidential Campaign which was given to Femi Kayode, a development which came after Metuh had squandered a whooping sum of 450 million naira media fund earlier approved for the office of PDP Publicity Secretary by President Jonathan.

“Last week’s controversial congresses in Anambra is another signpost to the destructive trajectory which the likes of Olisa Metuh is driving the PDP to. The chairman of the congress, Ike Abonyi, no doubt a veteran journalist is at present in Olisa Metuh’s employ as his media adviser. Another member of the committee, Collet Odenigbo is Metuh’s friend and adjutant on special assignments while the man returned as State Organizing Secretary, Sam Ben, is Metuh’s personal assistant. The process was so personalized to the chagrin of party members, especially leaders who were also illegally compelled to part with certain amount of money. As we write, the party is still waiting for the result of the congresses a week after it was held, pending when Metuh is done with his conclave of distortion and extortion.

“This is the same man who we reliably gathered, is surreptitiously scheming to emerge as the Organizing Secretary of the party next year. To do what? Turn the party organization into Idumota Market and institutionalize exaction, graft and impunity.

“This is a man who started in 1999 as a zonal youth leader, then National Ex-officio, Acting National Auditor, Zonal Vice Chairman and now publicity secretary. It is either his umbilical cord was buried at Wadata Plaza or that he can’t survive on any other thing except the PDP.

“We make bold to add that the worst form of anti-party is the mindless plunder of the party resources by the NWC which Olisa Metuh is an integral part of, in fact the leader of the body’s extortion gang. Recall that the same man was the Chairman of Kogi State congresses which held last week and match it with the fact that the widely rumoured request for One billion Naira from the State governor emanated the same week.

“Indeed labeling the staff of the PDP could be a veiled attempt to justify the huge sum of 70 million naira which Metuh collected in July in the name of fighting the APC in the media.

“We wish to therefore advise him and the NWC to respond to gritty issues raised in our press briefing without which the fortunes of the party will continue to dwindle,” the workers said.