Politics

PDP Appoints New Acting National Chairman Amid Crisis

Published

26 August 2021

6:27 PM

The opposition Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, has named its Deputy National Chairman (South), Yemi Akinwonmi, as the acting National Chairman.

Naija News reports that the PDP spokesman, Kola Ologbondiyan, made this known to reporters on Thursday after the closed-door meeting of the National Working Committee (NWC) of the party in Abuja.

Akinwonmi’s appointment follows the suspension of the PDP national chairman, Prince Uche Secondus by a court sitting in Port Harcourt, River State.

The presiding judge, Justice O. Gbasam, had ordered Secondus to stop parading himself as the national chairman pending the hearing and determination of the motion on notice for interlocutory injunction.

Speaking further, Ologbondiyan stated on Thursday that the emergence of Akinwonmi as the party leader is in line with the provision of the party’s constitution.

“I can clearly say on behalf of our party that we have navigated the turbulence, and today, as you all witnessed, we came to establish that a motion was moved and elder Yemi Akinwonmi was unanimously approved as the acting chairman of our great party.

“It is interesting for you and Nigerians to know that this is in line with the provision of our constitution,” Ologbondiyan said.

Meanwhile, President Muhammadu Buhari on Thursday approved the appointment of Dr Simon Harry as the new Statistician-General of the Federation to head the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).

The new NBS boss would take over from outgoing Statistician-General, Dr. Yemi Kale, whose second term of five years came to an end on August 16, 2021.

Naija News reports that Harry’s appointment was made known in a statement issued by the special adviser on media to the minister of Finance, Budget, and National Planning, Yunusa Abdullahi.

Dr Harry was the director of corporate planning and technical coordination department of NBS before his appointment.

This online newspaper reports that Harry has almost three decades of statistical experience.

He joined the erstwhile Federal Office of Statistics as Statistician II in 1992 and rose to the position of a substantive Director of Statistics in 2019.

In the course of his civil service career, he has contributed to several reform initiatives including the reform of the then Federal Office of Statistics which transformed to the current National Bureau of Statistics, the reform of the Nigerian Statistical System which resulted to the creation and establishment of State Bureaus of Statistics at the sub-national level.