‘Buhari, APC Sponsored Gbajabiamila, Elumelu To Set Crisis In PDP’

A Muslim community leader in Abia State and legal expert, Alhaji Suleiman Ukandu, has faulted the action of the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Rt. Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila, over his declaration of Hon. Ndudi Elumelu, as the Minority Leader of the House.
Elumelu, represents Aniocha/Oshimili Federal Constituency of Delta State, and also doubles as a chieftain of the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
It would be recalled that the Speaker, Femi Gbajabiamila, had, at last Wednesday’s plenary, announced names of officers for the minority leadership positions while disregarding the PDP’s letter endorsing some members for the positions.
The PDP had chosen Reps Kingsley Chinda (PDP-Rivers) as Minority Leader; Chukwuka Onyema (PDP-Anambra) as Deputy Minority Leader; Yakubu Bade (PDP-Kaduna) as Minority Whip, and Muraina Ajibola (PDP-Oyo) as Deputy Minority Whip.
However, Gbajabiamila announced Elumelu as Minority Leader; Reps Toby Okechukwu (PDP-Enugu), Deputy Minority Leader; Gideon Gwami, Minority Whip and Adesegun Adekoya as Deputy Minority Whip.
Speaking, Rep Leke Abejide (ADC-Kogi) said he personally signed in support of Elumelu and others as his leaders, dismissing his political platform’s position as an act of “imposition” of candidates of members of the national leadership on elected Representatives of the people.
But also speaking in an interview with journalists in Umuahia, the Abia State capital, Ukandu claimed that Gbajabiamila and Elumelu were contracted by the All Progressives Congress-led Federal Government to set crisis in the opposition party.
According to the PDP stalwart, “That is pure hypocrisy on the side of the Speaker, Femi Gbajabiamila. The Speaker himself inherited that particular aspect of party supremacy. His party, the APC, said Gbajabiamila should be their candidate for the speakership of the Ninth House of Representatives. And all his party members adhered to that. Why should the Speaker again, try to truncate the supremacy of another party?
“I think Gbajabiamila is trying to set crisis in the PDP. He wants to disorganize members of the PDP, who are in the House of Representatives in order to deny them a voice, in order to make sure that it did not, in any way, witness resistance from the already-planned policies, which he (Speaker) and his draconian APC, have on desk. I think he deliberately did that.
“And I believe that if Honourable Ndudi Elumelu is a true party man, he wouldn’t have accepted such unnecessary carrots that dangled to him. He should understand that there is already a pre-planned agenda by the APC, as regards the House of Representatives. They had a plan to destabilize the PDP. They have a plan to control the House to their whims and caprices”, Ukandu argued.