The People’s Democratic Party (PDP) has said the staff who attacked The Sun Correspondent on Monday, January 6, in Abuja headquarters acted on his own.
New Telegraph had earlier reported that an aide to the sacked National Secretary Senator, Samuel Anyanwu, Emmanuel Okoronkwo, assaulted Ndubuisi Orji who is a Sun correspondent attached to the PDP, and claimed that he acted on the order of the former National Secretary.
But PDP National Publicity Secretary, Debo Ologunagba, at a press conference on Tuesday, described the attack as disturbing.
Ologunagba said, “Although the PDP National Secretariat is closed for secretarial activities to enable our staff to participate in the yuletide festivities with their families, it does not preclude anybody particularly the press from having access to the secretariat to conduct their legitimate business.
He noted that Okoronkwo is not in the security department of the party and has no business whatsoever regarding the regulation of movements into the complex.
“He acted on his own, in violation of democratic and all-inclusive principles for which the PDP is known and outside the code of conduct guiding activities of staff at the PDP national secretariat,” he added.
Ologunagba noted that PDP is reputed for its uncompromising stand in support and defence of the constitutional freedom of the press and cannot by any means or under any guise whatsoever engage in or condone any act that tends to abridge such legitimate freedom of the Media or any person for that matter.
He assured that the issue would be handled in strict compliance with the party’s established Code of Conduct guiding activities of staff at the PDP National Secretariat to serve as a deterrent against such condemnable act which has no place whatsoever in the character and comportment of the PDP as a political party.
The party’s spokesperson regretted the incident and assured that PDP is committed to the rule of law and the democratic tenets of freedom of the press.
“The PDP regrets the incident and assures of its unalloyed respect for the press, particularly members of the PDP Press Corps as we continue as partners in progress for accountability, probity and sustenance of democracy in Nigeria,” he stated.
