2019: Group cautions APC on continued stay of nPDP in its fold

                        
The Vanguards for the Protection of Democracy in Nigeria (VPDN) said the continued stay of the new Peoples Democratic Party (nPDP) in the All Progressives Congress (APC) portends danger to the party ahead of the 2019 general election.

Mrs Sharon Cham, National Coordinator of the VPDN, gave the warning on Thursday in Abuja, when she led some of its members to protest the continued stay of the nPDP in the APC.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the nPDP, which fused into the APC in 2014, recently alleged that its members were being neglected, adding that they were going through harassment and intimidation.

The group had also given the APC leadership and President Muhammadu Buhari a seven-day ultimatum to address issues affecting its members ahead of the 2019 general election.

“We wish to remind the APC leadership that keeping these people in the party portends a lot of danger not only to the party, but to our hard earned nascent democracy.

“Political parties and government are formed by different people with different ideas, but with the same vision and mission to move the country forward.

“However, the way the members of the nPDP have been mounting unnecessary pressure on the government, causing disaffection in the party; shows that they are out to bring mischief and bad blood among teeming loyal party members,´´ Cham said.

This, she said, could clearly be seen from the series of threats the group had been dishing out to the APC leadership and by extension President Muhammadu Buhari.

She, therefore called on the APC leadership to sanction the group, adding that its alleged grievances could not be established or justified.

She said this was especially so, because some members of the nPDP were holding strategic positions in the APC-led Federal Government, including that of the Senate President and the Speaker of the House of Representatives among others.


According to Cham, the motive of the nPDP is not to find a lasting solution to the internal crisis of the APC, but to cause more problems in the party and the smooth running of government.

´´Please sanction and sack them now from the party, because the enemy within is always difficult to fight than the one outside; we say no to pardoning crimes committed,´´ she said.

NAN