The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Adamawa State has given all the 21 local government chairmen, vice chairmen and councillors in the state up until September 26 to re-register as members of the party or lose their seats.

The deadline came after the same group had voted in the September 6 governorship primary of the party in which the acting governor, Umaru Fintiri, was given the party’s mandate.

It was gathered that the move was designed to secure the government chairmen’s loyalty to the acting governor to ensure the party’s victory at the governorship poll on October 11.

There was suspicion that the local government chairmen who are still loyal to the impeached ex-governor, Alhaji Murtala Nyako, might work for the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the oncoming poll.

It was also learnt that the step was taken to frustrate legal action against Fintiri’s emergence because all the local council chairmen and councillors were card-carrying members of the All Progressives Congress (APC) during the primary. Some party members were said to have faulted their participation because they had not been given the “re-admission” waiver by the PDP before voting at the primary, but the Dimeji Bankole-led electoral committee was said to have turned a blind eye to the matter because of ‘pressure from above’.

According to findings by our correspondent, the directive was issued by the PDP chairman in the state, Chief Joel Madaki, at the party’s stakeholders’ meeting at Government House, Yola.

It was learnt that the stakeholders’ session was attended by a former minister of petroleum resources, Prof. Jibril Aminu, ex-PDP national chairman Alhaji Bamanga Tukur, Sir Wilberforce Juta, Air Commodore Dan Suleiman and two serving ministers, Boni Haruna and Zainab Maina, among others.

A reliable source said: “The council chairmen and councillors are expected to re-register as PDP members from September 22 but they have up until September 26 to complete the process.

“If they fail to re-register, the councils will stand to be dissolved by the acting governor. This became necessary because they are still believed to be the leaders of APC in their local government areas. The party and the acting governor are jittery that the local government chairmen and councillors can sabotage Fintiri.”

Another source said: “The deceit surrounding the September 6 primary has started emerging because the panel from Abuja and a gang of PDP leaders allowed non-party members to vote as delegates to elect Fintiri

“The electorate are beginning to realize the danger of voting for PDP in the coming governorship poll because they have fears that they can be shortchanged.

“If Fintiri secured the support of all these people, why the need for the deadline to local government chairmen, vice chairmen and councillors to re-register as PDP members?”

But in their separate reactions, chairmen of Mubi North, Mayo Belwa and Michika local government areas – Sahabo Jauro, Mohammed Bako and Vandi Favandza respectively, all denied the allegation, saying they were not aware of any such development.

They reiterated their full support to the PDP and the Adamawa State government under the leadership of acting Governor Ahmadu Umaru Fintiri, saying that they are bona fide members of the party and do not need to be re-registered into the party again.

Adamawa State chairman of the party Chief Joel Madaki, had, during an interactive session with newsmen recently, claimed that all the chairmen and councillors of the party did not need any waiver to partake in the PDP primaries as even members of the party who had defected to the party less than a week earlier were given waiver to contest party primaries.

However, the publicity secretary of the party, Lawal Habu, confirmed the development, saying that the decision was reached during the party’s stakeholders’ meeting of Friday, where some people complained that some of the chairmen and councillors whose loyalty was with Nyako might betray the party during the coming by-election.

According to Habu, following the complaint, it was resolved that from Saturday, any chairman or councillor who had not regularised his membership would be given four days to do so, starting from Saturday.

He said, “We have no problem with those chairmen and councillors who had already registered but those who have not fully registered are given four days to do so from Saturday, for the party to have confidence of their full membership,” he said.

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