The crisis in the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has deepened as the Board of Trustees (BoT) sacked its embattled chairman, Bello Halliru.
The board held its meeting on Wednesday, against the directive of the National Working Committee (NWC) that all meetings of the organs of the party be shifted to next week.
The spokesperson of the party, Olisa Metuh had on Monday issued a statement, saying the meeting of the national caucus of the party had been shifted to Monday next week.
He also announced that the BoT meeting would hold on February 16 in the morning, after which the meeting of the National Executive Committee (NEC) would hold.
But rising from the Wednesday meeting at the Nicon Luxury Hotel in Abuja, the BoT sacked its acting chairman, Bello Haliru, and appointed the secretary of the board, Walid Jibrin, as replacement.
Haliru is currently facing trial at a Federal High Court in Abuja over allegations of receiving large sums of money from the embattled former National Security Adviser, NSA, Sambo Dasuki, through his son.
Briefing reporters at the Wadata Plaza secretariat of the PDP, Senator Jibrin, a former senator, said he had been asked to take over as acting chairman pending the emergence of a substantive chairman.
Senator Jibrin said the BoT decided to ignore the decision of the NWC because it is a special organ of the PDP, adding however, that, members of the BoT would still attend next week’s meeting of the caucus and NEC.
“The BoT has already called for this meeting. It is a special organ that regulate its activities. We can take our own decision. We will still attend next week meeting.
“On the 25th of May, we appointed the outgoing acting chairman, Mohammed to act for three months, when the three months expired, we decided to extend his period by two weeks and that has expired.
“Very soon we are going to hold a meeting to elect a substantive chairman, probably during the next meeting of BoT, we will do it properly and elect a substantive Chairman,” he said.
