We'll Never Hang Buhari’s Portrait In Our Offices – PDP

After 100 days of President Buhari’s leadership in the country, it has been revealed that the national leadership of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has refused to put up the official portrait of Buhari at the party’s national secretariat.

Olisah Metuh

Investigations by The Punch revealed how the PDP is reluctant to continue the tradition of hanging the president’s portrait at any of their offices in its Wadata House national secretariat, located at Zone 5, Abuja. Confirming the report yesterday, Tuesday, September 8, the party’s national publicity secretary, Olisa Metuh, said that although the PDP has removed the official portrait of the former president Goodluck Jonathan, it would never hang that of the present president on its walls.

“We will never hang his portrait in this office, because President Buhari is not known to our party. He is not a leader of our party and therefore we will never put his portrait here. We are a political party, very partisan and therefore, we are not going to hide that.”
When President Buhari, who contested on the platform of the All Progressives Congress(APC), beat the PDP candidate, the former president Jonathan, hands down in the March 28 election, this was the first time the PDP had  been defeated since the return of democracy in 1999.
Until now the party has always hung the portraits of all the presidents in the party’s reception area as well as the National Executive Committee and National Working Committee halls within the secretariat.

Metuh said the APC also did not hang the portrait of Jonathan in its offices before the former president was defeated in the election.

“Can you find out if the APC had the portrait of former president Jonathan in their office before he was defeated? That is just it,” he told The Punch correspondent. When asked whether the party was taking its own pound of flesh, Metuh said no but that since Buhari “is not a member of our party, we won’t put his portrait here.”

However, when the APC’s national publicity secretary, Lai Mohammed, was contacted over this issue he was totally shocked. He said: “This is ridiculous and we have no comment. Let Nigerians judge the PDP on this matter.”