Monrovia – Members of the National Patriotic Party opposing the expulsion of Vice President Jewel Howard Taylor and John Gray have slammed the decision terming it as illegitimate.
Report by Willie N. Tokpah, [email protected]
The faction in the party, opposing embattled Chairman Jonathan Biney, says the decision taken during an extraordinary session held in Bentol City is controversial.
Andrew Peters, the embattled Secretary General of NPP, termed the recent decision by Mr. Biney, who he said does not have the authority to take decision, as illegitimate.
Speaking Monday on the Truth Breakfast Show, Peters said Biney should have used the proper channel to reclaim his membership rather than fraudulent means.
“Under our Constitution, Article 8.4 and 8.8 is clear on carrying on proceedings. What expelled Chairman Biney needed to do is to seek legal redress at the NEC, then jumping up in the morning and grab non-partisans and NPP partisans who are non-stakeholders to go for convention,” Peters stated.
Over the weekend, a segment of the party led by Biney expelled VP Taylor and Gray. However, Gray is being recognized by the Pro-Taylor fraction as Chair of the party.
The Biney faction also recommended that those working in government and going against the party’s interest be recalled from their respective position. It is not yet clear whether this recommendation would affect the Vice Presidency position.
The resolution furthered that two front-liners of VP Taylor faction, Mr. Andrew Peters and Bomi County Senator Sando D. Johnson are not recognized members of the NPP.
But Peters noted that the NPP Constitution provides that he and all other members of the VP Taylor faction are still members.
“I did not resign from the NPP, no one can show you any resignation. There was a special arrangement of which Biney and Randolph Cooper were aware of,” he said.
He argued that NPP is not divided while alleging that only one legitimate member of the party attended the Bentol extraordinary session.
Peters claims the governing council of the coalition for Democratic Change does not have the authority make a decision in the ongoing crisis.
“One of the mistakes they made is to have the very person that we suspended signing his own reinstatement, in person of Bolton Dennis,” he said, adding that no amount of threat would intimidate his side from doing what is right and in the interest of NPP.
“We do not care about the jobs, take the job, if we do not have job doesn’t means we are not part of the process. Job is not the only determining factor.”
Meanwhile, FrontPage Africa has observed that legitimacy over the old NPP Constitution and the amended version adopted at the 2016 Bomi Convention is also creating dispute. One group is claiming that the old constitution is legal while the other prefers the amended version.
At the same time, one man who is in the center of the NPP controversy, former Bong County Representative, George Mulbah has summersaulted on his endorsement of decision made at the Bentol extraordinary Convention.
Representative Mulbah told the Truth Breakfast Show Monday morning that rival factions of the NPP should revert to staquo.
For his part, Former NPP Chairman Chief Cyril Allen has distanced himself from recent decision made at the Bentol Convention to expel Taylor and Gray. Chief Allen told newsmen over the weekend that the decision taken by the Biney faction was done on their own