By NewsBits
A former Minister of Health, Professor A.B.C Nwosu says he does not feel like exchanging words with any Igbo person, especially Dr. Law Mefor, on his decision to resign his membership of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP.
“I have seen where Dr. Mefor said I needed to give an apology rather than resignation and I am not going to react to such thing,” the Igbo leader said.
Nwosu formally announced his resignation from the PDP through a letter to the party’s leadership in Abuja on Thursday, a development that was welcomed as timely by majority of those that reacted to his reason for the quitting the party, where he served as member of the Board of Trustees, BOT for many years.
Giving reason for his resignation, Nwosu had stated: “This resignation for me is a matter of CONSCIENCE and PRINCIPLE because of the Party’s inability to adhere to the ROTATION provision in its (PDP) Constitution.
“The journey to rotational presidency between the North and South of Nigeria has been a long and arduous one and I have been involved. Nigeria and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) must learn to keep to an agreement reached by a Constituent Assembly (1995); and enshrined in the Party’s (PDP) Constitution (1998).”
But Dr. Mefor, who is the Director, Igbo Leadership Development Foundation, differed in his reaction saying the roles played by Prof. Nwosu and other representatives of the South-East and indeed South in Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi and the Samuel Ortom committees on zoning of the party’s presidential slot for 2023 “were great missed opportunities that ended the campaign for a Nigerian president of Igbo or South-East extraction.”
He said members of the two committees from the Southeast and the Southern zone “owe their people an apology, not resignation”, stressing that Nwosu’s symbolic resignation had no value as it falls short of expectations. Responding, Nwosu told The Advocate on Friday that Mefor must have spoken out of ignorance because “he was not there in 1998 when we started the meeting that transformed to PDP.
“I never met him (Mefor) in 20 years we had meetings of PDP, I don’t really know him. I have met him, but I don’t really know him except when he came to my house in Abuja leading a team – Pan Nigeria President of Igbo Extraction, PANPIEC. I granted them audience and that was it. I didn’t see him again. Apparently, he is now a member of PDP media team.
“My reaction to him is that it is my prerogative to join PDP and to leave PDP when I want. I have that basic right and he (Mefor) is entitled to his opinion on me, it doesn’t bother me. I know he is not a member of NEC (National Executive Committee) or Board of Trustees, BOT of the PDP and all my actions are there in the minutes of PDP NEC and BOT. When he gets the privilege to read them, he will know that I have been consistent.”
Continuing, Nwosu said: “My journey through Mkpoko-Igbo, Secretary of the Igbo Committee for the 1994/95 Abacha Conference under late Dr. Pius Okigbo as well as the head of the Secretariat that serviced that conference, and my role in the National Conference where I represented Ndigbo in Committee Number One, as well as a key factor in the endorsement of the Atiku – Obi ticket by Ndigbo in 2019 among other things, speak for me.”
“So, I don’t know Law Mefor; we were not school mates, and we didn’t operate within same social circle but he is entitled to his opinion,” he added.
