. . . We’re not for sale, set up your own party, anti-Balarabe Musa group told
(Press Release) The People’s Redemption Party (PRP) has no factions and was willing to receive and reconcile with any of the party’s members who were derailed and found themselves on the wrong side of history fighting the legitimate leadership of late national leader and Board of Trustees Chairman, Malam Abdulkadir Balarabe Musa.
Speaking to the Media at the end of a meeting of its National Directorate last weekend (Sunday 20/03/2021), PRP Interim National Chairman, Malam Sule Bello, a Professor of History said ”there is only one PRP”.
Responding to a question on stories of a faction, he told the reporters that the group claiming leadership had been removed since September 26th 2020.
According to the Chairman, all Constitutional provisions and due process have been followed in terminating the Falalu Bello National Executive which was instituted at the September 1st 2018 National Delegates Conference (NDC) which held in Kaduna.
“The National Delegates Conference took place in lieu of a full pledged National Convention under the Chairmanship of Malam Abdulkadir Balarabe Musa as per the “Transitional Provisions” in the extant PRP Constitution.
“The PRP had been granted registration, three years earlier in 2015, after engaging the INEC, under its Chairman Prof. Attahiru Jega in a vigorous Judicial battle for unjustly deregistering it” he said, adding “as the delegates conference took place in 2018, the Party was expected to conduct a national convention within a year to fulfil the requirements of both the party and the 1999 Nigerian Constitution.
“Mark you, the PRP Constitution deposited at and still with INEC was the same one that Malam Abdulkadir Balarabe Musa managed the Party with as National Chairman. It is the same one that we still use. It has remained unchanged because it was only a National Convention, not a ‘transitional’ National Delegates Conference that had the powers to amend it”.
Under the PRP Constitution all elected party officers are to remain in office until the convention that should hold every year unless they resigned or were removed before then through the processes described by its relevant sections and rules.
Said he: “ARTICLE SEVEN of the PRP Constitution on Tenure of Office states:
“a) All State and National Officers of the Party shall hold office until the next ANNUAL CONVENTION (underlined capitals for emphasis)”.
At the same time the Chairman drew attention to the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, along with statutory and other informal rules governing all political parties’ activities as are defined by Sections 221-229, specifically Section 223 – 2 – (a) & (b).
Accordingly he said, “Section 223 – 2 – (a) states as follows:
“a) the election of the officers or members of the executive committee of a political party shall be deemed to be periodical only if it is made at regular intervals NOT EXCEEDING FOUR YEARS; (Capital Letters underlined for emphasis)”.
“That with reference to the item referred to here, since the PRP was registered after a court verdict in 2015, its National Convention is expected to hold within four years of return to the political scene as a newly registered political party.
“That the National Delegates Conference (NDC) which took place to midwife the Falalu Bello NEC was occasioned by the PRP Constitution’s ARTICLE SIXTEEN, ”Transitional Provisions” which allows for it as an inaugural party conclave before the First National Convention as provided for in the Party’s constitution”.
He said, “that the haphazardly concluded NDC gave birth to the Falalu Bello NEC, while ARTICLE SEVEN of the same PRP Constitution on Tenure of Office along with the necessity for holding regular conventions automatically stopped the Chairman and members of his dissolved NEC from continuing in office beyond December 2019, when the 2015 permit granted that PRP leadership clocked four years”.
Keeping in view, the same Article Seven rules for all State and National Officers of the Party to hold office until the next ANNUAL CONVENTION (underlined capitals for emphasis) late Malam Balarabe in his capacity as National Leader and BOT Chairman had persistently asked for conduct of the Convention within the defined timeframe or a special joint delegation to dialogue with all relevant Party and Institutional stakeholders to study available possibilities. Unfortunately, the late Balarabe Musa’s calls were not properly addressed by the former NEC Chairman, he added.
Prof. Sule Bello further pointed out “the removed executive was in addition condemned by its many failures and illegalities as documented in numerous letters exchanged with BOT Chairman Malam Balarabe Musa and the fact of the NEC exceeding its mandate and tenure”.
He went on to say, it was expressly stated in the section of the PRP Constitution on “Tenure” that “any elected officer of the Party may be removed during his tenure through a vote of no confidence passed by a two-thirds majority of the membership of the body that elected him or her to office”.
He said that such a “vote of No Confidence” was invoked by a majority of members who participated in the National Delegates Conference (NDC) of September 1st, 2018, adding it was members of the said conference who had to be recalled by Late Malam Balarabe Musa to save the Party when all formal letters and entreaties to the removed Chairman fell on deaf ears”.
The meeting of the National Directorate which held last weekend (Sunday 20th March 2021), at the Maitama Guest House, among other deliberations and resolutions revisited and validated the September 2020 PRP National Delegates Conference and Stakeholders Meeting which removed the former NEC and assigned the Interim National Executive Committee under the leadership of Prof. Sule Bello as Interim National Chairman to reposition the party.
As part of efforts to reposition the Party reports were received by the National Directorate meeting from states and zonal representatives on the State of the PRP while some committees were set up. Of the number set up were the Legal Matters Committee to address all pending legal issues at all levels of the party; and a Constitution Planning Committee to lead to an inclusive National Convention.
All State Chapters and Directorates now led by Interim Executive Committees have thus been given the marching orders to start registration of members, capturing existing members for revalidation and new members ahead of the congresses taking place from the Ward levels and leading to the National Convention.
Prof. Sule Bello, Interim National Chairman announced that a detailed program for the Convention will soon be released beginning with Congresses at the Ward and Local Government levels of the PRP with the registration of members now serving as the National Convention’s first steps.
Speaking on the failed efforts to hold congresses by the rebel anti-Balarabe Musa group, Interim National Chairman Prof Sule Bello noted with satisfaction that “its failure proved, if any confirmation was needed, that the PRP was intact”.
He called on all loyal party men and women to await further instructions on the congresses and the long awaited National Convention from the Party, whose headquarters remained Abdulkadir Balarabe Musa House, CITEC Estate, Jabi, Abuja.
He advised the renegade group who ditched Malam Balarabe Musa in his final years after benefiting from his “rebuilding and nurturing of the only truly ideologically based and principled political party concerned with the fate of all Nigerians to retrace their steps and come back home”.
He told the press that “already contacts and talks were ongoing to draw in those who still believed in the true PRP, saying “for those who came in as merchants they may go back and set up their own political parties if they so wished”.
“They should know that the PRP is not for sale. It has history. It has pedigree. We know where we are because we know where we come from. We won’t allow any mercenaries to derail us”, he concluded.
