THE Rivers State Chairman of the Peoples’ Democratic Party, Desmond Akawor, has explained that the party suspended the embattled National Chairman, Uche Secondus, because he was not financially committed to the party.

Akawor said this when he appeared as a guest on 92.3 Nigeria Info, Port Harcourt programme ‘Hard facts’ on Thursday.

He said “As of today, he remains suspended. He was suspended at the Ward level, of course ratified by the Local Government Area and the State level. As of today, he is no longer our national chairman.

“We now have an acting chairman. He (Secondus) completely derailed from the tenets of the party,” Akawor said.

Asked why the state PDP does not want Secondus as the party’s national chairman he said, “I will definitely mention one key point.

“June 3rd, I wrote a letter to all Wards that they should furnish us with names of party members that are dead, party members that have not paid their dues; and party members one way or the other that have decamped.

“Among the Wards that responded was Ward 5 in Andoni, and it clearly shows that he (Secondus) has not paid his dues.

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“In the Constitution of our party, it is an offence for six consecutive months, two quarters, if you have not paid your dues, your membership of the party is in question.

“That issue was kept pending because we had to approach the nation to represent some of these issues. Then, at that Ward level, a lot of party members were completely balkanized and they were in different camps.

“Then, of course when these issues were presented to the elders and they started to intervene, the news from the nation now started coming to us and became embarrassing.” Attempts to get a reaction from the media aide of Secondus, Ike Abonyi was futile. He neither picked nor returned calls to his mobile telephone.