PDP BoT member, Grace Bent declares party dead after presiding over Stakeholders meeting in Adamawa

Board of Trustee member of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and former Senator representing Adamawa South Senatorial district, Grace Folashade Bent has declared PDP dead in Adamawa State.

She said the governor of Adamawa State was destroying PDP on one hand, while destroying the State on the other due to lack of good leadership qualities.

The BoT member presided over Adamawa Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) stakeholders’ meeting in Yola on Wednesday.

She expressed deep fear for the survival of PDP, saying that, there is a lot of political dust and a cloud of crisis forming among the ruling party’s family members in the state.

Speaking with newsmen in Yola on Thursday, the former lawmaker who was at the upper chamber of the National Assembly from 2007 to 2011 lamented that PDP was no longer the party they used to know.

According to her, they were spending their resources and sacrificing their lives to keep the soul and body of the party together, but the governor was hell-bent on destroying the party.

She said: “Wednesday’s stakeholders’ meeting was criticised by Jackson and Dr. Umar Ardo as a gathering of the Governor’s political appointees and cohorts.

“How can he call for a stakeholders meeting that was attended only by his political appointees?

“Stakeholders are not yes men and women of the Governor, they are not government appointees, they are foundation members, BOT members, Former and Serving Governors, Former and serving Senators.”

“Stakeholders are not commissioners, political appointees are not stakeholders and Fintiri has consciously decided to marginalised us, he want to chase us out of the party. He is doing anything possible to chase me out of that party by all means. Nobody calls me or Dan Suleiman for any stakeholders meeting.

She accused the governor of claiming to retire her out of Adamawa politics, insisting that he can’t do that.

“Fintiri is purposely trying to alienate me, despite the fact that I was part of the system that helped him become Governor.”

Bent claimed to have shaped Ahmadu Fintiri and two other persons occupying lofty positions today in PDP, wondering why the governor she helped would now pocket the party.

According to her, Fintiri has left PDP in the hands of two of his most trusted allies, Hamza Madagali and Basi, who are the State Organizing and Financial secretaries, even when she nominated them at the time.

She said, Fintiri received most of the votes in her Demsa Local Government, indicating that she is the most influential stakeholder.

“A stakeholder of my calibre the Governor formed the government we all played a vital role and I was never consulted for suggestion?

“For the sake of our party I spent my money without receiving a dime from him to deliver Demsa. This is not our tradition in PDP.

“For two years since his inauguration as a Governor he has never called us for any stakeholders meeting.

“Because of the rubbish he organised yesterday, former Governor Boni Haruna didn’t attend the meeting in person and I believe he would not want to be part of such gathering.

“Who are the people at the meeting? Most people have left the party because of him.

“Bala Ngilari has gone, Senator Ishaku Abbo has gone, the party is in disarray because a lot of people have gone. Ardo have said my mind and I stand by what he said because it was not the stakeholders meeting that we use to have or know.”

The Governor has distorted the PDP that we have fought and struggled for over the years. Fintiri had been in ACN and had returned to visit us. Dr Ardo and I mobilized the entire Southern region, including the nine local governments, but Fintiri was nowhere to be found.

”As a BOT member I have laid this complaints to the National chairman, Ardo wrote many petitions to the National officials, Dan Suleiman has repeatedly made so many complaints about how Fintiri is killing the party in Adamawa state.

“Is killing the party with his anti-people actions. If he thinks because of power incumbency is behaving this way, he should go and ask how others were sent out packing as government officials.

“He has humiliated me, he has alienated me, I must say this that he is an ingrate. You cannot throw away the ladder you used to climb up, in Demsa I was the only stakeholder who stood by him to be the governor, that time Felix Tangwami is in APC as Bindow’s DG campaign but he is now the senior stakeholder when he decamped to PDP.

When asked to react, Governor Ahmadu’s Chief Press Secretary, Mr. Humwashi Wonosikou, said that all stakeholders were invited, and Boni Haruna sent a representative.

Mrs. Jackson, he said, has a personal issue that she must address in order to remain relevant in the Adamawa political system.

He urged the former Senator to mend fences with her Demsa politicians and avoid innocently criticizing the Governor because he is far removed from her thoughts and is concentrating on serving the citizens of the state who entrusted him with the power to rule.

“This is a person we read over the media that she is decamping to APC, I think she is fighting for baseless reasons since she cannot be more stakeholder than Joel Madaki.

”She should go back to her people to settle her political scores, she should count the Governor out of her political woes.” He said