Amaechi denies plan to dump PDP

Rivers State Governor, Mr. Rotimi Amaechi
 

Rivers State Governor Rotimi Amaechi on Thursday denied reports that he had threatened to dump the Peoples Democratic Party ahead of the 2015 elections, saying he had no plan to leave the party currently in the throes of internal crisis.

Amaechi said this at the end of a meeting he had with Vice-President Namadi Sambo at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.

A newspaper  reported on Wednesday that the governor had concluded plans to leave the PDP along with three unnamed South-East governors.

But Amaechi  told journalists at the Villa that it would be foolhardy to dump the PDP because it  remained the only national party in the country.

He said, “I am still in the PDP. I am a member of the PDP. PDP is the only national party in the country for now. Why will one want to leave a national party and go to another party?”

Amaechi has for some time been having a running battle with the leadership of the PDP over his leadership style as Chairman of the Nigerian Governors’ Forum. The party’s top hierarchy and some loyalists of President Goodluck Jonathan felt that Amaechi was not spending his term as NGF chairman to attract maximum benefits to the PDP and the Jonathan administration.

Few weeks back and on the eve of the NGF’s election in Abuja, the Presidency and PDP National Working Committee rallied loyal governors at the Villa to form the PDP Governors’ Forum and installed the Akwa Ibom State Governor, Godswill Akpabio, as the chairman with a view to weakening Amaechi’s influence.

Justifying the attempt at breaking the Rivers State governor’s influence, Special Adviser to the President on Political Affairs, Ahmed Gulak, had accused Amaechi of running the NGF like a trade union.