By David Olalekan.
The Minority Leader of the House of Representatives, Hon. Ndudi Elumelu has reacted to news of his suspension, alongside six of his colleagues, by the National Working Committee of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) over their alleged roles in influencing his emergence as the Minority Leader of the House, contrary to the wishes of the party.
Reacting to Elumelu’s emergence as the Minority Leader, the PDP had summoned him, as well as his colleagues to appear before the party’s committee on Friday but the lawmakers failed to attend, hence, the party’s decision to suspend them for one month.
Responding to the suspension, Elumelu explained that they (he and his colleagues) got the invitation to appear before the party late on Thursday when they had travelled out of Abuja, adding that out of the respect for the party, he directed his aide to write the party detailing reasons for their inability to honour the invitation at the authorized date, and sought for another day to appear, only to receive the news of their hasty suspension.
He said: “As loyal party members, we had thought that the PDP NWC would have availed us the opportunity of fair hearing, robust and constructive engagements before taking such drastic action on elected representatives who have over years, strengthened and protected the corporate interest of the party and Nigeria in general.
“We have become good ambassadors of the PDP and we don’t deserve this kind of treatment. Our alleged suspension negates the spirit and letter of fair hearing which is at the heart of the 1999 Nigeria Constitution and extant laws of the land.
“We love PDP and we are ready to meet with the party leadership as we have no other party to call our own than the PDP. We, therefore, call on the NWC to rescind its decision of suspending us, in the interest of the PDP, the National Assembly and Nigeria as a whole.”