The Board of Trustees (BOT) of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has sacked its embattled acting chairman, Dr. Haliru Bello Mohammed. The decision to remove Bello Mohammed was taken at the BoT meeting held at Trascorp Hilton hotel, Abuja.
The BoT’s took the decision despite the directives of the party’s National Working Committee (NWC) which suspended all meetings by statutory organs of the party till next week.
The NWC had shifted PDP’s national caucus meetings, BoT and NEC meetings to next week
Mohammed, a former minister of Defence in the immediate-past administration, was mentioned in the Dasuki scandal and is facing corruption charges at the Federal High Court, Abuja, alongside one of his sons.
According to a communiqué from the meeting, the secretary of the BoT, Senator Wahid Jibrin was mandated to take over in acting capacity pending the election of a new chairman.
Senator Jibrin however highlighted after the meeting that the BoT initially appointed and gave Bello Mohammed three months to act on May 25, last year and the tenure was extended between two weeks and one month.
He added that the tenure of Bello Mohammed has since expired which informed his removal as the acting chairman of the BoT.
Senator Jibril also declared that the BoT will be meeting again next week to deliberate on a number of issues affecting PDP.
Responding to a question about why the BoT went ahead to hold its meeting despite the directives of the NWC to all statutory organs to suspend their meetings till next week, Senator Jibrin said the BoT is an independent organ of the party and not subject to the directives of the NWC.
He further explained that the BoT has already called for the meeting and could not have called it off at the instance of the NWC.
“It is a special organ that regulates its procedure. We are not under any organ. We will still be attending the meeting of next week which is part of the series of meetings for the organs.”
On the issue of the new chairman of the party, he said the North East zone of the party will be sending the names of their nominees to the statutory organs of the party next week.
He expressed optimism that a new national chairman of the party will emerge next Tuesday after the National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting.
-Leadership
