The FCT Police Command has denied blocking the Peoples Democratic Party from holding its NEC meeting or sealing the building at Wuse Zone 5, Abuja.
It was gathered earlier on Monday that police officers took over the party headquarters and prevented the Board of Trustees from holding a meeting ahead of the 100th National Executive Committee meeting, scheduled for later in the day.
However, Josephine Adeh, the FCT police spokesperson, told Peoples Gazette over the telephone that operatives were deployed to the premises to secure the event and prevent a breakdown of law and order.
“We did our normal deployment because there was supposed to be a meeting there to ensure that they maintain peace. We did not block anybody or anything.
“They were the ones having their issues there. We were just there to ensure they didn’t break things. Those PDP people locked that place by themselves,” Ms Adeh said.
Ms Adeh said the operatives only intervened when members of the party, already in crisis, started fighting among themselves before the party relocated the meeting to another location.
“When we got there, they started fighting, but when they started fighting themselves, of course, you don’t expect police to stand and watch people fighting and injuring themselves.
“How do we have the key to lock that place? They are the ones having disputes within themselves, and when they did, at the end of the day, I think they left to another location.”
Former PDP secretary Ibrahim Tsauri had told journalists at the secretariat that the officers claimed to have shut down the building following “an order from above.”
“The policeman told me, ‘There is an order from above to stop the meeting.’ This meeting is scheduled for 1:00 p.m. I came here for the meeting, so for me, I can only brief you on the politics. Since they have stopped the BoT, I do not know if they can hold the NEC,” Mr Tsauri said.
Also, Bode George, a BoT member, in an interview with journalists, said members were informed that the meeting could not hold at the party secretariat.
”We spoke to some of the policemen who said that, actually, it is to maintain law and order because of the conflicting notices that emerged yesterday, and also that they got an order from above,” he said.
Meanwhile, a statement later in the day said the party moved the BoT meeting to the Yar’Adua Centre, Central Business District, Abuja, and urged BoT members to proceed to the new venue.
Crisis in the party worsened after its National Working Committee split into two factions, with the one led by Deputy National Chairman South, Taofeak Arapaja, insisting on the NEC meeting holding today, while the other, led by the acting national chairman, Umar Damagum, calling for a “Special Expanded National Caucus Meeting”.
