By Oghenevwede Ohwovoriole
The Director General, Prof. Jerry Gana Campaign Organisation, Dr. Ike Neliaku, has accused leaders of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) of betraying his principal by inviting former Cross River State Governor, Mr. Donald Duke to contest the party’s presidential primaries. He claimed to have evidence of their meetings, which he promised to disclose at the right time.
Ike who accused the party leadership of betrayal and conspiracy, maintained that his group simply wants an adherence to the party’s constitution.
“By the he provision of our constitution, this ought not to have happened. We drew your attention to it, you ignored it and you said you didn’t take the man (Mr. Donald Duke) seriously. How wouldn’t you take a former governor serious? How, especially in this case when we heard that some of them went and invited the man (Mr. Duke) to contest? You invited somebody to contest, you turn around and you say you didn’t take him seriously. Somebody somewhere was simply manipulating the process to ensure that somebody does not emerge. We have the facts. We know the meetings they held, where they were held, dates and what they decided to do and they carried it out,” he disclosed.
He emphasised that he was not afraid to name the leaders involved in the clandestine meetings.
“They are party leaders and when the time comes; if it becomes necessary I will mention names and where they met and what they discussed and what they were instructed to go and do.”
Speaking further, he said, “It is a conspiracy and sabotage and I keep wondering why such deceit could be carried out. We know where SDP was until Prof. Gana and his team came into the party and we know where the party is today,” he stated.
Neliaku wondered why his principal was singled out for the unwholesome treatment, “All you do is to use him. We will not accept it. Prof. Gana is a gentleman. He has already said we should move on. We said, ‘sorry sir, it’s not about you’. We did not start G19 just for Prof. Gana no it is a movement that we want to use to redefine political activities in this country. And anywhere we see anything that is wrong we will take it up. It’s for all of us and our unborn generation. They should have advised him not to contest, that there are challenges and if Prof. Gana did not accept their advice and went into it, they would have cleared their conscience. They didn’t do so, rather they kept urging him on. If you have a constitution and you cannot uphold it, how can you uphold the constitution of Nigeria? We say we want to correct this things, but we are sinking deeper into the same situation.”
He concluded by saying that the issue at hand was about protecting an institution. “I would like to emphasise that the issue here is not personal. It is about protecting the integrity of an institution because it could go this way today and we keep quiet tomorrow it could go a different way. It is about doing what is right. If the party will do the right thing, the reputation of the party will be stronger and people will know that the party can protect them. There is nothing wrong when you correct your mistake because it is the part of honour.”
