The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) under the leadership of Tanimu Turaki said on Friday that it has filed an appeal against the Court of Appeal’s judgment voiding its National Convention held in Ibadan.

The faction also dismissed reports of a national convention organised by the Wike-backed National Caretaker Committee, saying it was unaware of any such plan. It, however, reaffirmed its openness to reconciliation in the interest of party unity and members aspiring for elective positions in 2027.

National Publicity Secretary, Ini Ememobong, told journalists at the end of a National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting at the Bauchi Governors’ Lodge in Abuja that the appeal will not hinder ongoing reconciliation efforts.

He cautioned that without peace within the party, those seeking to contest elections on its platform would be unable to do so.

“As you are aware, other organs of the party are either advisory or act on behalf of NEC, and so intermittently NEC must be scheduled so that the decisions taken by other organs on their behalf can be ratified or rejected by them,” Ememobong said.

He explained that at the meeting, the NEC deliberated on and ratified decisions taken by the National Working Committee (NWC) and the Board of Trustees, including the move to explore reconciliation, appeal the Court of Appeal judgment at the Supreme Court, and ensure successful e-registration.

“All of those decisions were ratified unanimously in utmost good faith. The process of saving our party is on course, and all hope is not lost,” Ememobong said, adding that the NEC is satisfied with the Board of Trustees’ disposition.

He further reminded party supporters that e-registration is ongoing at iampdp.org and assured that efforts to strengthen the party and secure its place on the ballot are progressing steadily.

“We said that NEC agreed that it should be appealed. Remember that immediately after the judgment, the NWC met and directed the lawyers to file an appeal, and I can confirm to you that the appeal has not just been filed; that appeal has been entered in the Supreme Court, and all the concomitant applications, applications for accelerated hearing, and all of that have also been filed.

“But what we said is that the filing of this appeal does not inhibit the reconciliation processes. The moment agreeable terms are met, parties will withdraw their cases. I mean, courts are usually very happy when parties approach them for discontinuance or withdrawal. So that appeal has been filed, and other subsequent legal actions have been taken to protect the position of the party”.

While saying that the two parties have been meeting, Ememobong said, “We do know that reconciliation is a journey towards a destination and you measure it by movement. So movement is being done along that line, the destination of reconciliation will be met, and you can bear with me that we have a situation of negative peace at the moment, at least a cessation of hostility.

“You’re not finding both sides trading blame and hot tackles. You’re finding de-escalation in rhetoric, hurtful rhetoric, and the rest. What is there is that the journey of reconciliation is on course. The bus has left the station, the train has left the station, but has it arrived at reconciliation? No. Has it passed some bus stations and train stations? The answer is yes.

“Do we want that in public? The answer is no, because we do not pretend that there are no people within and outside who do not want this peace to be. If we let them understand the milestones that we have achieved, it means they know the next bus or train station to wait for us.

“So it’s best that the next time you hear from us, you hear that we have arrived at the destination. How we arrived, whether by helicopter or by plane, would become immaterial, provided it is legal. And when we arrive at that destination.

“Remember that this reconciliation is made to strengthen the party, and the party at this point is an opposition party, it’s not a ruling party. It is not to make the Peoples Democratic Party an appendage of any other party. It is made to strengthen it as an opposition party and a party aligning with the disposition and interest of Nigerians, which is the provision of an alternative to the ruling party.

“So time is clearly an issue, and both parties are working along with time as a condition. Irrespective of what both parties are doing independently on their own, it doesn’t affect the reconciliation. When the reconciliation happens eventually, the terms of the reconciliation will determine whether what was done and the things that were done have reached the destination.

On the alleged non-compromising stand of the Wike-backed National Caretaker Committee, he said, “Like I said, negotiation is a destination and a journey. At the point where negotiation begins, you see that people come to negotiations with hard-line positions. But the beauty of negotiation is in the seeding of grounds, and time is a critical element in negotiation.

“You find that parties who never sat before begin to sit. That negotiation is going somewhere immediately; parties previously opposed to sitting together agree to sit. You can see that between November and today, negotiation alone has created people who haven’t sat together, people who haven’t greeted each other. So it is the element of time to achieve the purpose of this negotiation, which is an agreeable consensus, and even within the limit of time.

“It is only God who can give an answer whether the negotiation will eventually work or not. Only God can give that answer. But our duty is to act in utmost good faith towards that destination because, at the end of the day, men must be men and God must be God.

“The Bible and Quran admonish us to seek peace, and that is what we are doing, and history is recording the disposition of people. If at the end of the day reconciliation will mean death, nobody agrees to die to be peaceful.

“Even the law allows for self-defence. But what is our position today? Our position today is straightforward. We are disposed to peace. We have de-escalated. All the organs of the party under our control are disposed to peace, and we are working there.”

Speaking on the planned national convention scheduled for Sunday, he said, “Talking about the convention, there’s no convention coming up to our knowledge. But we will not begin to deconstruct that because that would be an inconvenient truth. And we cannot be saying those inconvenient truths at these points in public.

“Those are things we are discussing together. It’s like having a wife, and someone comes to claim your wife. The wife knows whose wife she is.

“My people say that the owner of a thing does not drag it too much. If you see our disposition, it is because, in the end, we hope that we can get to an agreeable situation so that our people can find a solid political platform to run. Let me tell you, we have been speaking against the concept of mutually assured destruction.

“People across the board do know that unless we come to a point of agreement, people running for elections will not be sure of the platforms they are running with. And that is what we want to avoid. We are clearly speaking against mutually assured destruction.

“It’s a concept that all parties understand clearly, and so we’ve made room for peace. We are open to peace. Discussions are ongoing. There are what are cal’ed irreducible demands that you want to take out of it. But what you leave the house with is usually not what you go back with.

“So it is the zone of possible agreement where parties would say this agreement works for this party. That is where we’ll be. So we are still open to that within the limits of the available time”.

Addressing the NEC meeting, Chairman of the National Working Committee, Kabiru Tanimu Turaki, said the meeting had to be postponed immediately after the judgment of the Court of Appeal to allow them to appraise the unfolding development microscopically and be in a better position for the leaders to take informed decisions.

He said the decision was taken not only for the purpose of saving and strengthening the party as the only legacy party that’s surviving in Nigeria today, but also to save democracy and ensure that multi-party democracy survives in the country.

Turaki said further that the Board of Trustees of the party has met to discuss some of the developments and has set an agenda not only for other engagements that the leadership of the party has had to take, but to be able to clearly know what options are available.

He said, “It is our own responsibility to inform you that we’ve done all the research that we need to do, we’ve done all the fact findings that we need to do, and we will be in a position to present the facts to you and all the options available to us as a party, including but not limited to the interactions we’ve lately been having with our friends on the other side of the fence.

“But suffice it to say that for us in PDP, all hope is not lost. It’s also important for me to inform you that every conceivable effort is being made by the leadership to ensure that PDP is on the ballot in all the elections in 2027.

“It’s also my pleasure to inform you that the leadership is assiduously working around the clock to ensure that the PDP remains a veritable platform for all our members wishing to contest elections, both in 2027 and beyond. We feel that to whom much is given, much is expected.

“The support, the cooperation, the solidarity of members of NWC and indeed other leaders of this party is so humongous and overbearing that our minimum responsibility to all of you is to ensure that we keep PDP not only afloat, but we keep PDP in a state where we will contest and win elections and by the special grace of God and come back to government at the centre in 2027.

“For us, all hope is not lost. Indeed, no hope is lost. We must therefore beat our chest and be very proud that the PDP is the only party in Nigeria that belongs to the Nigerian people.

“Nobody and no group of people can stand up and say, ‘ This is our party. We have lost former presidents, we’ve lost former vice presidents, serving and former governors, and members of the National Assembly, but that has not affected the survival of this party in any way. So PDP will continue to exist by the special grace of God because PDP has become an institution as far as democracy in Nigeria is concerned”.

Chairman of the Board of Trustees, Senator Adolphus Wabara, expressed concern at the turn of events in the PDP, saying, “I weep when I watch the television and see some people with very weak, whatever you may call it, belief, jumping from pillar to post. It’s true, it’s one family we have tried to reconcile”.

Wabara said the committee constituted to embark on a reconciliation mission was yet to report back, saying “unfortunately, the chairman of that committee, the governor of Oyo state, according to the national chairman, had to travel. So we are waiting for our host, the governor of Bauchi state, who will brief us on what has happened. But that will not stop us from taking some very vital decisions that will move us forward.

Leader of the House of Representatives caucus of the PDP, Fred Agbedi, also expressed concern about the depletion suffered by the party in recent times as a result of the current development.

Agbedi said, “Our numbers are waning, our numbers are reducing, but I can tell you that in the House of Reps, there are still over 30 people left. Those of us left are holding on, relying on our party. We are waiting with the party and we are at arms in the field with the party.

“Whatever the party decides, however the party wants to go, how they are going to surmount the challenges of this party, we are ready to go with you. We want to assure our leaders of this party that nothing good comes easy. Nothing.

“When the battle, the war gets tough, it’s only the tough that keep going. If you are weak, you fall off. So we must learn to be strong and be ready for battle.

“I can tell you that the president who is the president today had only Lagos at the time, and he kept pushing on, trudging on until today, he’s the president of the majority party. We can do it again.

“We can do it again. If you stand up, we can get it done. If you move on, we can achieve it. And so I urge you, this government has failed Nigeria. One reason why I will never go to APC is that I must stand on the side of Nigerians.

“I don’t care whether I have a platform to contest elections or not. I don’t care whether I will have an elected office or not. I don’t care whether I can feed myself or not. But Nigeria’s survival is more important.

“So if you are here, please, I urge you not to look at somebody’s dollars. I urge you not to look at somebody’s naira. It’s our naira and our dollar. Some of them haven’t made money on their own by themselves. It’s public money they have been spending.

“They are using public money to buy us, and we shouldn’t allow that to happen. So please, PDP, arise so that we can take this battle to their doorsteps and defeat the APC that has completely failed and ruined Nigeria.”

Chairman of the state, Chairmen loyal to the Turaki group, and Edo state Chairman of the Party, Tony Azigbemi, assured of their commitment to the survival of the party and to the Turaki-led leadership.

Azigbemi described the development within the party as the “fight between light and darkness”, adding, “We believe one man cannot sit in his bedroom and write the names of members of the National Caretaker Committee of our great party. There’s a reason why it is called the People’s Democratic Party.

“You must hold consultations. You must bring more people to the table when you are sharing those positions. And here we are, just one person or a maximum of two people giving us a list of members of the National Working Committee of our great party. Will you allow that to happen?

“We hear they are going to a convention. Which convention? Where did we decide to go for a convention? Who agreed to go to that convention? So for us, at the level of the state ”hairmen, we want to assure you that we’ll go nowhere that we’ll stick with you, we’ll be with you, no matter what happens, no matter what is thrown at us, we’ll make sure that we stand by you. (The Nation)